I’ve always wondered why there isn’t an abundance of NFL long snappers, you know the person that snaps to the punter. Their job is to throw a ball through their legs really far back, and then to block afterwards. I’m not saying that I could do this, my scrawny 5' 5'' build could never. But I feel like there should be more people that are good enough at this to be in the NFL.
But then you realize that these players have a very important job: they can’t mess up. If they mess up in the biggest of games and in the heat of a moment, their reputation and career will be tainted. No one remembers them for every successful snap, lots of people can do that. But the performance under pressure, the way one miss doesn’t cloud your focus for the next one, that's what gets these players hired. The best players are those that feed off the adrenaline in high pressure situations, but don’t let the stress cloud their fine-tuned skill.
In high-pressure situations, people can do crazy things. Everyone feels an adrenaline rush in these situations, which is an evolutionary result of the advantages of “powering-up” when doing something that matters. This feeling clouds your mental space with only the task at hand, improving your focus and diverting the whole of your subconscious mind. While doing something without stakes, your mind can go astray, you’ll be thinking about something else. When does practice end? Is doing this really going to help me? Without this baggage holding you down, you can push yourself pretty far without realizing it.
The key behind pressure is the way it stops all conscious thought. When I say conscious thought, I mean the part of your brain that is actively looking at what you’re doing and starts judging it. Under pressure, we start relying on our subconscious mind: the ingrained habits and muscle memory. This is what many describe as the flow state, where you’re so focused that you feel like everything is coming naturally.
But if pressure is so good, why do most people crack under it? Humans are special because we have a conscious mind capable of deep thought, but overreliance on this part of our brains makes us worse at things we’ve practiced. Our conscious mind has been in control of their choices for so long that it doesn’t trust the subconscious mind to take over with something so important. As soon as people feel themselves entering the almost supernatural flow state, they take a step back and question themselves under the stakes.
Humans are special because we have a conscious mind capable of deep thought, one that we can use to make complex decisions in difficult situations. But, under pressure, this part of our mind is too slow and easily distracted, rendering it, frankly, unreliable. To thrive under pressure, we have to live purely in the moment, understanding the stakes, but leaving our fate to what we’ve practiced. We have to trust that all will go well and not consciously lose faith until the very end.
When one enters the flow state, they lose their conscious thoughts and live purely in the moment. However, in some cases, they need their conscious thoughts, whether it be to make decisions calmly, like when a quarterback is about to get sacked, or to make complex strategies, like when a quarterback audibles to a different play call. If one loses all these deep thoughts during a flow state, is it really beneficial? Shouldn't there be a balance between the both to push one's performance to the highest possible level?
ReplyDeleteFootball is actually a great example for this, and in the situations you described, conscious thought might be necessary. But conscious thought is inherently slower and less reliable that subconscious habits. The best quarterbacks have built up instincts of when to audible or the best play to make when getting sacked. I think what you're getting at is adaptability, like if you're in a situation you haven't practiced. But this still should be subconscious for the best players. As soon as you are required to thinking actively about what you're doing, there's room for improvement.
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