he Key to Being Clutch When Using Your Procedural Memory To excel under pressure and be clutch with tasks that require procedural memory, you must distract yourself from the task at hand. Instead of over-thinking what you’re doing or are about to do, you must trust that the hours of training and practice you’ve put in before that moment won’t let you down. Distract yourself. If you’re lining up for a golf putt, distract yourself from the mechanics of your putt by counting backwards or singing. Our guitarist above can close his eyes when he starts to feel nervous when playing in front of an audience (as an added bonus, scrunching his eyes shut will make the girls think he’s deep). Develop a mantra. Sports psychologists often counsel their athletes to develop a mantra they can repeat when the pressure is on. Mantras are just another way to keep you from over-thinking what you’re doing in a high-pressure situation. Baseball Hall of Famer George Brett’s mantra when he was up at bat was “Try easier.” A basketball player could use a mantra like “Relaxed and smooth,” for when he steps up to the free throw line. When you’re on the putting green, use the immortal mantra of Chevy Chase in Caddyshack: “Be the ball.” Focus on the target, not your mechanics. Another tactic you can use to avoid paralysis by analysis is to focus on your target, instead of your mechanics. For example, when you’re trying to bowl a strike, you don’t want to think about your approach, so you should focus and aim at an arrow on the lane instead. When firing a gun, focus on getting a clear sight, not on your trigger pull. Don’t slow down. Remember how with tasks that require working memory you should slow down? Well, forget that bit of advice for tasks that require procedural memory. Studies show that the faster you get going, the better you do. Football coaches understand this and will often try to throw off opposing kickers by calling a time-out right before they kick the ball. This technique is called “icing the kicker.” The idea is that giving the kicker more time to think about the kick will increase his analysis and anxiety, thus blocking his procedural memory from guiding the ball through the uprights. If you’ve ever mountain biked, you’ve probably witnessed the truth in this. If you see an obstacle up ahead on the trail and cautiously slow down in anticipation, you will often awkwardly hit the obstacle and fall over. But, if you swallow your fear and keep up a quick pace, more often than not the bike will sail right over the obstacle. High Pressure Tactics for Both Working and Procedural Memory Tasks So we’ve talked about tactics tailored for situations that involve your working memory and for those that engage your procedural memory. But there are also things you can do that can help you no matter the high-pressure mission you’re trying to accomplish. Practice tactical breathing. Tactical breathing was developed by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. It’s a technique that soldiers and police officers use to quickly calm down and stay focused in high-pressure situations like firefights. Here’s how to do it: Slowly inhale a deep breath for 4 seconds. Hold the breath in for 4 seconds. Slowly exhale the breath out for 4 seconds. Hold the empty breath for 4 seconds. Repeat until your breathing is under control. Simple. What’s hard is having the discipline to do this when you start feeling stressed out. Before delivering that big sales pitch or negotiating your new raise, take a few minutes to do some tactical breathing to clear your mind and keep yourself calm, cool, and collected. Practice under pressure. Practice under the same conditions that you’ll face when you have to perform for real. While you can’t replicate the stress level of real-world situations in a practice setting, even training under mild stress can improve a person’s ability to thrive in clutch situations. A great example of the power of practicing under pressure comes from Southern Utah University’s basketball team. Before coach Roger Reid arrived in 2007, the team ranked 217th in free throw percentage. By 2009, the team was ranked number one. What did Reid do to help his players thrive in the often high-pressure stakes of free-throw shooting? During practice, Reid would randomly stop everything and bring his players to the free throw line. If the player made the shot, he got to take a breather. If he missed, he had to sprint around the court. By putting something on the line for failing to miss a practice free throw, Reid was able to help his players better handle game-on-the-line free throws. If you’re preparing for a test, do your practice exams under the same time limit you’ll have on test day and without the use of study aids. If possible, practice in the same room in which you’ll be taking the actual test. If you’re preparing for a speech, practice in front of a friend or even a camera. Studies have shown that athletes or performers who practice in front of the watchful gaze of the lens perform better than those who practice in isolation. Stay active and outwardly focused. In the book War, by Sebastian Junger (which I highly recommend), he shares an interesting study done on a Special Forces team during the Vietnam War. The team was stationed at an isolated base along the Cambodian border and knew there was a good chance of the base being completely overrun by a force of Vietcong. Surprisingly, researchers found that in contrast to the officers, the stress levels of the enlisted men actually dropped before an expected attack, and rose when the attack failed to materialize. Researchers offered this explanation: “The members of this Special Forces team…were action-oriented individuals who characteristically spent little time in introspection. Their response to any environmental threat was to engage in a furor of activity which rapidly dissipated the developing tension.” This activity included laying C-wire and mines around the base, which as Junger notes, “was something they knew how to do and were good at, and the very act of doing it calmed their nerves.” When you’re facing a threat of a less deadly variety, take a cue from the men of the Special Forces; instead of sitting around navel-gazing, bouncing your leg up and down, and working yourself into a ball of nerves, keep yourself occupied with preparations. Read over your notes again, shine your shoes, take some practice shots… Stay humble. Remember, “Pride goeth before a fall.” We’ve all seen examples where over-confidence in sports resulted in choking when the pressure was on (cough, Miami Heat, cough). Over-confidence can kill your performance because it keeps you from striving to improve. If you want to be clutch, you need to strengthen your skills and prepare every day for those