How to play good under pressure

Question
How do I mentally play good under a lot of pressure. Like comeback last quater pressure.

Answer
Hello Nick.  Time got away from me on this one, sorry for the delay.

You can mentally train yourself to use that pressure to play even better.  The right amount of pressure helps your concentration improve, helps your focus tighten and helps you move faster.  What happens is people take in too much pressure, they get overloaded, and they don't do their best.

Here's a mental training tool that can help. Get relaxed, close your eyes, and take five slow deep breaths.  Then, picture or imagine a time when you played well in practice.  Really focus on that, everything you saw, heard, felt and experienced.  Notice how focused you are.  Now change to another practice when you did great.  Notice again how you felt - confident and focused.  And do it again, the same thing.  This helps you get in the mind set of doing well.  

Now, go through those scenes again, but this time picture or imagine a round switch, like the knob of an oven.  Imagine a part on that switch that is:  10 Percent.  When you turn that knob to +10 Percent, that ramps up your focus to help you do even better under pressure.  Mentally practice those same plays, but with your new position.  This way you train yourself to give yourself a boost on command, kind of like hitting the nitrous button on a dragster.  Practice this, a lot.  Part of your mental practice can be replaying actual games, hitting your "nitrous button" and notice how your played even better.

What this does is program yourself to be able to access that extra 10 percent, to use your "nitrous button" as your secret weapon, when you need it under pressure.  Practice this a lot, the more you practice the better it will work for you.  I've helped many players improve using this tool - it works!

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

David

David Kenward, The Mental Coach
Sacramento, California
http://www.thementalcoach.com