Why Small Moments Feel SO BIG!
- Julie Jones
- Jun 1
- 6 min read
PRESSURE…as the great philosopher, Billy Joel, put it, “But you will come to a placeWhere the only thing you feelAre loaded guns in your faceAnd you'll have to deal with
Pressure!!!!
Most of you are probably too young to remember this song (Google it, it’s a good one! 😊), but the premise is…we ALL deal with pressure!
As we continue our “pressure theme”, we know that pressure shows up in far more places than championships and nationally televised epic battles…. like last night’s UCLA vs. Texas Tech showdown!
Sometimes pressure looks like trying to get everybody out the door on time to catch the bus before school. Trust me…that one happens regularly in our house.
Sometimes pressure is being put on the spot during a meeting. Sometimes, it is trying to figure out whether you found the right players in the transfer portal. Sometimes it is being a high school softball player walking into Firestone Stadium in Akron for the state tournament, knowing it is one-and-done.
And sometimes it is a 14U rec baseball game that, logically, does not really matter much in the grand scheme of life…but somehow starts feeling incredibly important in the moment.
That happened to us last week.
We were making bonehead mistakes. The strike zone was inconsistent. We were losing to a team that had not won a game. And honestly, we were told the coach on the other side could be…challenging…so our dukes were up…as they say!
You could feel the frustration building.
And this is what fascinates me about pressure! Our bodies often react to perceived importance, not actual importance.
Blascovich & Mendes (2000) and others have found that the nervous system responds strongly to evaluation, uncertainty, perceived threat and loss of control. In many situations, the brain reacts before logic catches up.
In other words, our body does not always distinguish between “this is annoying” and “this is dangerous.”
When pressure rises, attention often shifts toward outcomes, mistakes, fear, evaluation or frustration instead of the present task…and this is where I was. In the “what if” stage…or the “what the heck?” in the past thinking mode!
Not only are we all in our heads…. our body goes into overdrive, too! Our heart rate rises, our breathing changes, our attention narrows…and you know the rest of the story!
This is why athletes can become overwhelmed during situations that “shouldn’t matter that much.”
The pressure feels real because physiologically, it IS real.
Researchers studying Attentional Control Theory (Eysenck et.al., 2007) have found that anxiety competes for the brain’s attentional resources. Worry and frustration consume mental bandwidth, making it harder to process relevant information and stay focused on the task at hand.
This matters because pressure often creates secondary problems. The original situation may no longer be the biggest issue. The reaction to the situation becomes the issue.
As I was standing on the field, I felt myself pulled toward frustration and urgency. And honestly, the game itself was not life-changing….AT ALL!!! Trust me, no one cares!
But the emotions were still real.
So, I took a deep breath. I smiled. And I reminded myself how lucky I was to be standing there coaching baseball with my son and his teammates.
Then I reminded myself of one of our team strengths…. that we take full advantage of relief pitching!! And I mean full advantage!
That small mental shift…and talking about what is true…made a huge difference. Not because it magically removed pressure. But because it interrupted the spiral.
I feel ridiculous using this example…but it is a PERFECT example of how we get swept into situations that, logically, we know don’t deserve any heightened emotion…but we go there anyway! And later, when cooler heads prevail, we feel as ridiculous as I do right now!
But, in the long run, it’s the tools that are important since we know even seasoned coaches can get pulled into unintended arousal in rec baseball. And the tools I used were perfect for the situation!
Research on emotional regulation suggests that reappraisal, intentionally reframing a situation, can significantly influence physiological and emotional responses to stress. In simpler terms, the meaning we assign to a moment changes how our body responds to it.
We are constantly determining meaning. I often use the example of Starbucks in “meaning” discussions. People wait in line for an inordinate amount of time for a $9.00 cup of coffee.
They LOVE it. I think it’s absurd. I don’t drink coffee, feel like it’s a waste of time and I’m cheap. Add that all up, and no Starbucks for me (but I do like the treats they have 😉)!
My other example is this. I enjoy running races. Most people think they are absurd…and won’t waste their money to punish themselves, which, if I’m being honest, I have often thought as I am trudging through a course..”I paid to do this??”
But the point is, Starbucks is not good or bad. Races aren’t good or bad. They are what we think they are!
So, how we think about something changes how our body responds!! That is important because many people think pressure management means becoming calm all the time. It doesn’t.
Pressure management is often about recognizing activation early enough to redirect
attention before the moment completely hijacks you.
The cool part is that attentional control is trainable. Dr. Amish Jha famously said, “Attention is the brain’s boss,” and when pressure rises, attention often drifts toward outcomes, mistakes, evaluation, fear, frustration or imagined future consequences…like losing to a team that hasn’t won!
Again, pressure is not always about the event itself. It is often about the meaning we assign to the event.
That is why two people can experience the same situation completely differently. Some love a challenge and say “good”! Some face a challenge and say another four-letter word!
Dr. Kelly McGonigal writes in The Upside of Stress, “Stress happens when something you care about is at stake.”
I love that because it reminds us that pressure itself is not weakness….it’s an interpretation…and often means we care!
The challenge is that once the nervous system becomes activated, the brain starts searching for evidence to support whatever story we are telling ourselves. And THAT is where we can spiral.
This is why I love a simple pressure-management tool that connects directly to our mindfulness discussion from last week - NOTICE → TRUTH → NARROW
First, we NOTICE what pressure is doing to our body and attention. (Thanks to our mindfulness minutes we practiced before we got here!). We ask, “Am I speeding up?” “Am I catastrophizing?” “Am I focused on outcomes instead of execution? “That awareness is the first step.
Then we look for the TRUTH!!! We ourselves a question as we discussed a few weeks ago, one often used by military leaders and high-level performers during uncertainty, “What do I KNOW is true right now?”
Not the story we are telling. Not the fear. Not the assumption. The facts.
In our baseball game, I reminded myself of something true. We use relief pitching really well.
That simple truth immediately interrupted my emotional spiral and redirected my attention toward something productive instead of emotional chaos.
Finally, we NARROW our attention toward the smallest useful task in front of us. One pitch. One breath. One conversation. One decision. One inning. One response.
Pressure often pulls attention everywhere at once.
Elite performers recover by grounding themselves in reality and redirecting attention toward what matters most RIGHT NOW!! Not perfectly, just intentionally.
Maybe that’s the lesson in all of this. Pressure management is not about becoming fearless. It’s not about becoming emotionless. Pressure is part of caring.
The goal is not avoiding pressure. The goal is to become more skilled at recognizing it, interpreting it and responding productively inside it. It’s about becoming more aware of the stories pressure is creating, learning how to anchor yourself in truth and training attention to return to execution before the spiral takes over.
That awareness creates choice. And choice creates response-ability.
And honestly, sometimes it starts with something very simple. One breath. One smile. One reminder of what is true and what actually matters.
Manage the moments!
Julie
Julie Jones
Mental Performance Coach
SSB Performance
juliej@ssbperformance.com • 234-206-0946