Pressure Isn’t Random: Why Specialists Repeat the Same Mistakes Under Stress

Ask almost any specialist about a bad performance and you’ll hear the same thing:

“I don’t know what happened. It just felt off.”

From the inside, pressure feels unpredictable. But from the outside, something very different is happening.

Pressure is not random. And your response to it isn’t either.

What most athletes experience as a bad day is usually a repeatable pattern, one that shows up the moment the stakes rise. Pressure doesn’t create new problems. It reveals the version of you that training built. When the rep carries consequences, your system doesn’t improvise. It defaults.

Some athletes rush their tempo. Others become overly mechanical. Some try harder instead of executing cleaner. Others start searching for certainty in a moment that doesn’t offer any.

Different behaviors. Same reality.

Recently, I worked with a specialist preparing for a high visibility evaluation camp. Physically, he was more than ready. Strong leg, clean ball striking, excellent practice numbers. But the moment the charting started, everything sped up. His routine shortened, his breathing changed, and you could feel the urgency creeping in before he ever missed a ball.

Afterwards he said, “I have no idea why that felt so fast.”

But it wasn’t random. It was his pattern.

Once I showed him the shift, not the miss, but what happened before it, everything changed. We didn’t overhaul his mechanics. We stabilized his tempo, anchored his routine, and got his system regulated again. The result? His next chart looked exactly like his training.

Most specialists fall into the same trap after a poor performance. They search for something tangible to blame. Mechanics. Weather. Timing. The snap. The hold. Sometimes those factors matter. But when the same type of performance keeps appearing in bigger moments, it stops being situational.

It becomes behavioral. And if you don’t recognize the pattern, you’ll keep trying to fix the wrong problem.

Here’s what many athletes miss: The breakdown is rarely the first sign of pressure. It’s the final one. Pressure usually introduces itself earlier through subtle shifts. Tempo changes. Breathing gets shallow. Focus moves from executing to needing the result.

None of this means you aren’t mentally tough. It means your system is responding to consequence.

That response is trainable, but only if you learn to see it. The athletes who separate themselves at higher levels aren’t avoiding pressure. That’s impossible. They understand exactly how their system behaves when it shows up. Because when you know your pattern, you can stabilize it. And when stability increases, consistency follows. Not motivational consistency, operational consistency. The kind coaches trust.

Talent is not what breaks down under pressure. Behavior is.

I’ve seen specialists with elite physical tools struggle to replicate practice in competition, while others with less raw ability become incredibly reliable when the moment gets big. The difference is rarely mechanical. It's awareness.

High performers stop asking, “What went wrong?” and start asking, “What is my pattern when the moment matters?” That question shifts everything. It moves you out of reaction and into ownership.

Once a pattern is visible, it becomes trainable. Pressure isn’t random. It follows structure.

Learn the structure, and you stop being surprised by your own performance.

By: Coach Suzi Freeman, Mental Performance Coach & Master NLP Practitioner

Coach Suzi focuses on Special Teams Players

coachsuzi@suzifreeman.com

www.suzifreeman.com