Let’s talk about choking.
It is one of those words athletes hate, and parents quietly worry about. And if you have been around sports long enough, you have seen it happen.
Easy plays suddenly look hard. Timing is off. Decision-making slows down. And it always seems to show up at the worst possible moment.
Here is the part most people get wrong.
The common belief is that athletes choke because they are not mentally tough, they cannot handle pressure, or they lack confidence. That is not actually what is happening.
What is really happening is much simpler and much more fixable.
Under pressure, athletes start thinking instead of reacting.
The brain speeds up. Thoughts get louder. Awareness increases. Self-consciousness creeps in. And instead of letting their training take over, athletes begin to overanalyze, control movements, second-guess decisions, and focus on everything that could go wrong.
That shift interrupts everything.
I worked with a middle-distance runner preparing for a major meet. She was well prepared to perform well in her main race, the 800m. In training, she was dialed in. Her workouts were strong, her race strategy was clear, and her confidence was building with every session.
Then we talked about race day.
She said, “I just don’t want to mess it up.”
That one thought changed the entire picture.
Instead of focusing on running a competitive race, reacting in real time, and trusting her preparation, she was now trying to manage the outcome. Her confidence dipped at the start line. She felt anxious. She started trying to think her way through something her body already knew how to do.
We made one small but powerful shift.
We changed the thought from “I don’t want to mess up” to “start strong, push.”
We simplified her focus and broke the race into pieces she already understood. More importantly, she stayed present instead of trying to control what might happen.
That is what high performance actually looks like.
Pressure itself is not the problem.
Pressure exposes what an athlete has not trained for.
If an athlete does not have a reset system, a clear focus strategy, and a way to manage their thoughts, they will default to overthinking. That is when performance starts to fall apart.
So how do we fix it?
First, train one thought at a time. In pressure moments, simplicity wins. Short, clear cues like strong and smooth, look, or attack give the brain something useful to do instead of spiraling.
Second, build a reset. Every high-level athlete has this, whether you notice it or not. After a mistake, there is a physical reset like a breath, followed by simple instructional self-talk like, “next point,” and then a return to action.
Third, practice pressure on purpose. Confidence is not built from perfect reps. It is built on learning how to handle imperfect ones. That means adding competition, creating consequences in practice, and raising the level of challenge so athletes learn how to respond when things are not going perfectly.
Here is the truth about confidence under pressure.
Confidence is not feeling calm. It is not feeling perfectly ready. It is not waiting for everything to click.
Confidence is trusting yourself when things are not perfect.
Athletes do not choke because they are weak.
They choke because no one has shown them what to do in those moments.
And once they learn, everything changes.
If your athlete struggles in big moments, this is trainable. They can learn how to stay present, trust their preparation, and perform freely when it matters most.
You can reach out to me here
https://ewperformance.com/contact/
