The Winning Edge Coach Podcast

Transform Stress into Success: Boost Confidence and Master High-Pressure Situations

• Kevin Oakley • Season 1 • Episode 84

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Unlock the secrets to boosting your confidence and managing stress with insights from my coaching experience on this special episode of the Winning Edge Coach Podcast. Ever wondered how to convert stress into a performance-enhancing tool? Join me, Kevin Oakley, as we dive deep into practical strategies that will transform how you approach high-pressure situations. From understanding the Yerkes-Dodson Law to reframing challenges as growth opportunities, this episode promises to equip you with the mindset and techniques necessary to thrive when the stakes are high.

Prepare to enhance your mental readiness with methods that calm nerves and sharpen focus, using discreet physical actions, visualization, and powerful breathing techniques. Discover how simple actions like rubbing palms or engaging in box breathing can be game-changers in stressful moments, allowing you to maintain control and poise. Plus, learn how to turn high-pressure experiences into invaluable feedback, boosting your confidence for future challenges. Whether gearing up for an interview or a major presentation, these actionable insights will ensure you're not just surviving, but shining.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of the Winning Edge Coach Podcast. I'm your host, kevin Oakley, and, as always, I'm here to provide you with the tools, tactics and techniques to help you to unlock your true potential. Today's episode is a little bit different. It's a Q&A episode, but with a difference. During my coaching work, I often get approached by people who have got problems with confidence. They have got low confidence. It could be in interview scenarios, it could actually be in their day-to-day role. It could be in terms of confidence to go out and meet people, socialize, etc. So what I've asked the Perplexity AI app to do is search for me the most commonly asked questions regarding confidence on the internet, and the Perplexity AI app has compiled a list of questions. So what we're going to do in today's episode I'm going to go through those questions, read them out and then give you my thoughts based on practical coaching experience. So I'm going to be sharing a lot of real world examples of tried and tested techniques that you can go out and give it a go to boost your confidence in any scenarios, whether you've got a big interview coming up, a just generally want to feel more confident day to day. Today's the episode for you to stay tuned to and get some real, as I say, tips that have been used and proven in the field, as it were.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Winning Edge Coach Podcast. I am Kevin Oakley. As always being your host, I'm also a peak performance mindset and life coach. In each episode, I wanna share with you the tools, tactics and techniques to create a winning edge mindset to help you to live the life you were meant to live. Okay, let's get on with today's Q&A episode of the Winning Edge Coach Podcast.

Speaker 1:

As I said, there's a little bit difference. I've asked the Perplexity AI app to go out and find out the most commonly asked questions on confidence under pressure, and I'm going to go through those questions one at a time, and give you my viewpoint based on my coaching experience. Okay, so the first question is how can I reframe pressure as an opportunity rather than a threat? I think the word here in the question is the reframe bit. I think sometimes we have a negative bias. The human mind works on a negative bias. We see things very negatively. It's as I've often said on the podcast before it helps us to survive. It's one of the reasons that we have become probably the dominant species on this planet is because we are generally risk averse Certain times when that does not apply, but that's not for today's episode. The first one, for me, is the actual word.

Speaker 1:

Reframe is actually changing your viewpoint or putting a different frame around the situation you're in. And one of the ways I often say to people that, for example, people going in for an interview will often see it as quite a scary, nerve-wracking exercise. And there's a few ways to approach this reframing. One is ask yourself a better question. So, in other words, how can I get the best out of this situation? What can I do to show myself in the best light? What can I do to show myself in the best light? We've always got to remember that when you've got those feelings of whether it's anxiety, nervousness, it's your body trying to tell you something. So, first of all, use the reframe technique. So you know, look at it in a different light. It's your opportunity to shine, as it were. It's your opportunity to show the best that you are, or the best that you can be, and show what you can do. Um, and I said, ask yourself a different question. Just pose for a pause for a moment and ask yourself that a different question in terms of how can I get the best out of the situation.

Speaker 1:

To me, the other part of that reframing exercise is to actually look at challenges as opportunities. Switch it round. Instead of viewing it as the challenge as being something threatening, actually view it as an opportunity to grow. It's an opportunity to get new experience, develop new skills. This might be a presentation or an interview that actually it's just the stepping stone to the next interview or the next presentation where you perform better, and the one after that you perform better and better. It's a way of inoculating yourself in terms of being able to, you know, use each opportunity as a stepping stone to improve your skill, learn from it, apply the learning and move on and get better. So, use a growth mindset, look at each one as a stepping stone to the next better performance.

Speaker 1:

Also, in those pressure situations, it's worth reminding yourself I'm not probably not reminding yourself the actual law itself, but there's in neuroscience, there's something called the yurts dodson law. Basically, what that means is it suggests that the body needs a certain moderate level of stress to actually improve alertness, motivation, to be able to aid performance. We need that little bit of nervousness, that nervous energy, to be able to perform. And it's good to remind yourself when you get those butterflies, when you're feeling that little bit of nervousness, to remind yourself this is your body's way, or your mind's way, of repairing itself to perform, embrace that energy, capture it, use that nervous energy to get your best performance. And, as we go on with a few of the other questions I'll talk about because sometimes that nervous energy gets too much and it detracts from performance and I'll share with you, as we go through some of these questions, techniques to actually reduce that nervous energy and keep it at the right level where it aids performance, not ampers it. So that was the first question.

Speaker 1:

Question number two what are some effective strategies for managing physical symptoms of stress? This is a really good question because we all find ourselves in those high pressure moments when we actually feel the pressure, we feel the stress, we feel the nervousness and we need ways to very quickly bring down our nervous system and to be able to perform at our best. My go-to techniques for handling these situations the first one is very simple 7-11 breathing. And this is really really simple. It's breathing in through your nose for a count of seven, out through your mouth for a count of 11, and just cycling that 7-11 breathing. Cycling that 7-11 breathing, 7-11 breathing is probably one of the most effective calming ways that you can do in any situation to actually bring down your state of anxiety, nervousness et cetera. It works on the parasympathetic nervous system not easy for me to say and calms the system. It actually brings down your heart rate. You feel calmer and you feel much better and ready to perform. Brings it down to that right level so you're not full of that nervous energy.

Speaker 1:

Another one, a very simple one, is just rubbing the palms of your hands together in a circular motion. Just gently rubbing your hands together in a circular pattern actually has a calming effect. This particular effect is more powerful with some people than others, but it's worth a try. And it's also one of those that circular rubbing together the palm of your hands. You could do it in any situation and nobody would really know what you were doing. It's one again, just to practice. It's similar with the breathing in low pressure situations, just to have it as almost wired into your neurology. This is what you do when you're nervous just that rubbing of palms together. So that's breathing rubbing of palms together. The other thing is shaking out that nervous energy. We often see animals in the animal kingdom. They will when they're under or experienced a threatening situation. You'll see them actually shaking. They're shaking out that nervous energy and you could actually do it just by shaking out your hands and extending your arms just about shoulders width about from your body, and just shaking your hands out and just shaking that nervousness out and just spend a few minutes, a minute or so, just shaking out that nervous energy.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I like to do with a lot of my clients is establish a positive anchor or a calming anchor. Anchoring is best if you do with a practitioner, but you can do it yourself, and probably the easiest way to do it if you were establishing an anchor yourself is using the spot on the ground that you step into. You visualize a step into it. It's almost like a beam of light coming down to create a circle on the ground that you step into. The minute you step into it it produces an emotion.

Speaker 1:

Now I'll talk you a little bit through how this works. Basically, you program your, your neurologyy prior to any event. So you've got to practice this upstream a little bit. You've got to go away and do this well before and practice it a few times and also build on it to make sure it's well established. So effectively, what you do ahead of time is somewhere quiet. You envisage or imagine a circular shaft of light coming down onto the ground, casting a circle of white, bright light on the ground.

Speaker 1:

You then think of a time and we'll use calm, for example think of a time when you're really, really calm, really relaxed. Think of yourself going back to that time when you were really calm, really relaxed, see what you were doing, hear what you heard, feel how you felt. And the moment you feel that full calmness, you step into that light and just while that peak of emotion is there and then, once the emotions peak emotion has peaked rather, you step out again and you will repeat this three or four times with different scenarios, so it could be relaxed, it could be happy, it could be not so excited. Probably wouldn't be a good example of this, but any kind of calm state when you were feeling calm, relaxed, happy, content. And the important thing is, there's two key parts to this. One is to go back to the time, get a strong image of what you heard, what you saw, what you felt at that time, and then the second key part is the moment the emotion peaks. Step into that pool of light, that circular white light, at the moment the emotion peaks, and then step out. Do it two or three times and then after, whenever you find yourself in that state, you want the calm state, the relaxed state. Just again, visualize the circle of light, step in and that just reinforces it.

Speaker 1:

So let's say you've got a big presentation or an interview or maybe you're performing sports, at an eye level you basically, prior to going on stage, you are into the interview room, onto the cricket field, the football field. Envisage that beam of light, step into it. You should get that flood of calm, relaxed feelings. It'll instantly relax you and instantly calm you. To do this with music not as easy, maybe if you're doing an interview or whatever, but from a sports perspective or a presentation perspective, it's very quick, easy, to just put an headphone in or two headphones in, listen to a particular track that you have already anchored to be calming. So again, similar exercise, but this time, instead of stepping into the light, the minute you want, you imagine the calm situation or the content, the relaxed at the peak of the emotion. You play the opening two or three seconds, four or five seconds of that particular song. I would again suggest that the song itself needs to be quite calming and quite relaxed. Do it four or five times and again you should get the same effect. Whenever you put that song on, you should feel that flood of calm and that's calmness and that is how we establish an anchor. So that's how I would approach that one, with some tried and tested techniques.

Speaker 1:

Our third question is how can I prepare mentally for high pressure situations? My first tool or technique for this particular situation how would you mentally prepare for a high pressure situation? One is visualization. I encourage anybody I'm coaching who's going into a high pressure situation to visualize that situation as accurately as they possibly can. So basically, they run the movie in the mind of the interview, the presentation, the sports performance, but this is the important part they do it in a positive manner. Is it going with the interview or the presentation going really well? So they will literally run it through as a movie in their mind in full color, but with it going as planned, so going smoothly, knowing the answer to the questions, being relaxed, being calm and just running through it.

Speaker 1:

The room of the presentation, to visit the room beforehand and just so they can lock it into their mental picture. There, you know, create the most accurate image they possibly can, and you can. This visualization exercise, you can do it from the point of turning up at the venue for the interview or turning up at the venue for the presentation and run the movie in your mind and see it going really well. That going to plan. So that's a first technique for me is visualization. You've got to practice it quite a few times over a number of days to get the most from it because, basically, what you're doing is you're making your mind feel that they've done this time and time again before, so it's nothing new and it brings down. That visualization exercise helps the familiar familiarity which I'm struggling to say again today is actually helps you, then, because it's something you do all the time, even though you've only done it in your imagination.

Speaker 1:

The next question, question number four, is what role does body language play in projecting confidence? This is a fantastic question. I'm a big fan of body language and the way we hold ourselves and move impacts the way we feel and move impacts the way we feel. I really like the work of Amy Cuddy. I know there's a lot of question marks or problems with replicating, but I think she is spot on with the body language aspect and actually making ourselves bigger. We see it all the time in the animal kingdom. If you look at the alpha males, the pack leaders in the animal kingdom, they will make themselves big, they will expand themselves to take up as much space as possible to give them that feeling of I don't want to say superiority, but give them themselves that confidence, that feeling of being in charge, and we can do the same.

Speaker 1:

Amy Cuddy talks about in her TED Talk about the power poses, and I'm a big fan especially before big events, big performance of using the power poses, making a conscious effort to make yourselves bigger. So it's very simple. There's three power poses. I making a conscious effort to make yourselves bigger. So it's very simple. There's three power poses I particularly like. One is the arms up in the air, out wide in the shoulders, almost like that wide, making a wide, wide shape, feet a little bit apart, but forming that wide, wide shape.

Speaker 1:

I also encourage people in coaching to get the head up, get so their eyes are above eye level and put a smile on your face as you do it and hold it for a minute. I always say to them go away, find a quiet private room and get yourself into that power pose from you know a couple of minutes before your interview. There's a lot of research that's been done with the power pose and I'll cover the other two poses in a minute. But where people actually an interview panel are asked to assess the minute the candidate walked through the door, score their confidence, assess their confidence and what they did, they had some candidates do their normal process. They didn't know about the power poses. Other candidates did a power pose before they went in. In the main, the power pose candidates scored higher on their perceived confidence and entering the room than those that didn't. So there is something to you know boosting your confidence with a power pose before any of these big events.

Speaker 1:

The other one on the power pose one is hands on hips, feet, shoulder width apart, and again just hold that pose for for a couple of minutes. It's called the wonder woman pose as from the I think it was in the 1980s tv series with linda carter wonder woman, but hands on hips, feet, shoulder width apart, and again hold that pose for a couple of minutes. That pose is particularly good because you can almost get away with that pose for a couple of minutes. You know, even if you were in a crowd or, you know, waiting to do a presentation, standing hands on hips, feet, shoulder width apart, doesn't attract a great deal of attention compared to the arms up in the air. And again, get your head up and, if you can, get a smile on your face. The last one is hands locked behind your head. You know, wide out pose. If you can put your feet on the desk, even better. But just interlocking your fingers behind your head and getting your elbows out wide, stretching them back, gives you that boost of again feeling confident. Feeling, you know, as if you are the alpha, the pack leader.

Speaker 1:

The other thing to be conscious of is, then, is how you hold yourself. Make sure, as you're walking to whatever it is the presentation, the interview you're upright, you're striding with confidence. The way we hold ourselves has a big impact on how we feel. The mind and body are connected and the two interact. So if you're walking with confidence, you will feel confident. If you're upright, you will feel confident. You'll often notice, with people who are feeling threatened or nervous, they will make themselves look small, they will crouch down and they will make themselves as small as possible hunched over, and they will make themselves as small as possible hunched over. It's again practice making sure you're upright, arms are out, away from your body. That gives that perception of confidence and it makes you feel confident. So be very conscious of how you're holding your posture. Get yourself upright, get yourself expanded, keep your arms away from your body, don't cross them over. Not only is it the perception, it's how you feel. So that, for me, is the impact of body language in terms of projecting confidence, not just outwardly but inwardly.

Speaker 1:

That was a really good question and one of my favourite topics. The next question our most commonly asked questions on the internet around confidence and performance under pressure is what role does preparation play in confidence and how can I prepare effectively? For me, preparation is key. Preparation is that track that you run on. The more times you have been in that situation, done that routine or presentation before, the more relaxed you will be. Preparation is king and what I always encourage people to do. One is the visualization side. Actually visualize yourself performing in whatever arena that is, whether it's an interview, whether it's a presentation, a sports scenario, whatever it may be. Rehearse being in that scenario.

Speaker 1:

The other part, for me, is in practice. So we all practice, whether it's an interview, whether it's a presentation, and again, in the sports world, practice is common. But pair actually, as you would for the real thing. So follow the same steps. So, for example, your presentation, the build up to your presentation, you will follow the same I'm going to use the word ritual but you will have the same routine every time you present. If you commonly go to interviews, try and have the same routine every time you go, including some of the things we've already talked about the breathing, the power poses. Have them strategically placed at set time intervals as part of your pre-performance routine. If you're a sports person, it's part of your warm-up, but no different with an interview or a presentation, the warm-up phase and follow it religiously every time, and the more times you repeat it, one it becomes common and normal. So you're wiring into your neurology this pattern, and the more familiar something is, the more comfortable you are with it.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I would say is round preparation is to expect the unexpected. So in other words, prepare for situations that might arise that they'll catch you by surprise. I often remember Michael Johnson's autobiography I think it's called Slaying the Dragon he talks about. Johnson was an unbelievable 400-meter runner, but he came to the realization that he'd never raced in the rain, none of the competitions. He'd been called on to race in the rain and he made a conscious decision in training to seek out days and I'm paraphrasing this so it might not be quite accurate but in effect he looked for opportunities to practice in the rain and run at speed in the rain, so he was familiar with it. So if the time ever came that he had to race in the rain, he was already prepared. He'd done it before, and the same for yourself prepare for the unexpected.

Speaker 1:

So know what you would do if you're doing a presentation. What would you do if your laptop failed? What would you do if? What would be your standby if your laptop failed? What would be your standby if you forgot your presentation? What would your standby be if there was a power cut? Same with an interview. We all try to practice what we think. The questions will be Think of some unexpected ones, unexpected scenarios, the run up to it. What would you do if you were running late? What would you do if it was particularly wet that day and you've got quite a distance to go to the interview venue, prepare for the unexpected. If you've got a bank of scenarios that you're prepared for in the event that something crops up that wouldn't be in the norm, it again makes you feel more prepared. It makes you feel more confident and more ready, but preparation is key. Running through that routine, as you would on the day time and time again, it just helps you to. It becomes the norm, it becomes this is what I do, and you'll feel so much more relaxed. The next question is how can I use breathing techniques to calm nerves and boost confidence?

Speaker 1:

I know we've touched on breathing previously, but let's do a bit of a deeper dive into the various breathing techniques there are. Breathing is a brilliant way to calm yourself down, to engage the parasympathetic nervous system and to make yourself feel calmer. I've talked about 7-11 breathing the 7 in through the nose, the 11 out through the mouth. There's a couple of more breathing exercises I really like. There's the physiological sigh. This I got from Andrew Uberman from the Uberman Labs podcast, and it's really really good and really effective. It's a filling of the lungs or a breath in through the nose once and then, once you feel as if you've filled the lung, it's then another breath on top, so it almost sounds like a sigh, so it's, and then it's the long breath out. So it's, it almost sounds like a sigh, so it's, and then it's the long breath out. So it's that and that is the physiological sigh. And andrew uberman says there's been a lot of search research done on this and it is very, very effective at calming down. That A few cycles of the physiological side really has been shown to calm down, and I believe he was saying on the last time he referred to it that it's even been used now in the arenas of anxiety et cetera. It's so effective and just a few rounds of that is really effective at calming you down. So that's the physiological side.

Speaker 1:

The other one I like is box breathing. So box breathing is breath through the nose for the count of four, hold for the count of four, out for the count of four, hold for the count of four and again repeat. So it's going around the corners of the box. So in for four, old for four, out for four, old, again for four and then again back around to in Again another fantastic breathing exercise. And the thing I like about the breathing exercise and the breathing techniques for calming is they are so discreet and you can do them anywhere. You can do them in the car, you can do them standing or sitting outside an interview room, you can do them before you go on to do a presentation, and it just works and they are effective. So those are my. We've done 7-11 physiological site. So those are my. We've done 7-Eleven physiological site, and box breathing are my go-to ones and I've had my coaching clients use them time and time again to good effect.

Speaker 1:

It's put me in high pressure situations. The next question is what techniques can help me focus on the task at hand rather than getting overwhelmed by pressure? In high pressure situations it's very easy for the mind to actually be overwhelmed by what's going on and everything around you and the things you've got to do. The big one for me is to sit down or just to focus on what is in your control, so actually to cut out all the background chatter, all the noise that's around you and everything you feel that you perceive that you've got to do and the list of things that's going around in your head, the things that could go wrong, and focus on what is in your control. So it's just a matter of taking a step back and actually making a mental note of right, in this moment in time, what is in my control? First of all, my breathing. I can control my breathing. I can focus on my breathing. I can 7-11 and focus on my breathing. My posture is within my control. I can make sure I'm standing upright, my arms right by my side, away from my body. I'm making myself look big as I possibly can. You know, I've got a smile on my face, I'm looking people in the eye. Those are very quickly in your control.

Speaker 1:

And then next is the key tasks that at that time are in your control, whatever environment you're in. So if it's presentation, it's following the track of your presentation, just focusing on what you've got to do and what is in your control. You know, if it's a particularly noisy environment for a presentation, all you can do is focus on your particular environment. If you're in a sporting event and it's pouring down with rain, the rain is outside your control and so you can just focus on what you've got to do. Whether that's, you know, if you're running, it's just being confident and being aware of your current situation, being a bit mindful in a way. It's because we do get very much overwhelmed very quickly. So it's being mindful and being in the moment of your current situation. Another good technique on this one is just three things you can see, two things you can hear and one thing you can smile and just brings you into the moment and helps you to stop feeling that home overwhelm.

Speaker 1:

Another one I would say, especially when things aren't quite going to plan and maybe something's gone wrong, is saying to yourself okay, what's the plan, what is my plan and what is in my control Two key questions and just pause, take a step and wait to see what your mind throws back at you with those two questions what's the plan and what else that is in my control and just see what comes to mind. But the important thing for me is focusing on what you can control. You can't do anything with what's outside your control, but you can definitely focus on what is you can control. You can't do anything with what's outside your control, but you can definitely focus on what is in your control. The last question out of these commonly or internet search questions on confidence under pressure is how can I learn from high pressure experiences to improve my confidence for future situations? I think for me the key on this one is the fact that there's no failure, only feedback. Any situation we find ourselves in, all we can take from it is feedback. There's no right or wrong, there's no failure. It is feedback. It's a way, an opportunity to say, even if something goes well, we can get feedback to say well, next time I can do it better by I'll do this a little bit differently or I'll change this With any performance afterwards.

Speaker 1:

It's worth spending a few minutes and sitting back and thinking, first of all, what went well, what went particularly well for me that day, and the things that did well go well for you. I would encourage you again to anchor those. So use the you know, the disc of light and step into it. You know, going back to how you feel, what you saw, how you felt in that situation and anchor those feelings in and go through what went well and almost congratulate yourself or celebrate it, because we do have this negative bias and sometimes it takes four or five positives to outweigh a negative. So it's very important to sit down and go through the list of things that went well during that event presentation, interview, eye pressure, scenario, whatever it may be and make a I would even make a physical note pen and paper and write it down what went well. But that's the first part.

Speaker 1:

The second part is me is how can I improve, or how can I use this situation to perform better next time, and that's part of the key. How I phrase that it's how can I use this situation to perform better next time, or how can I improve for next time. Improve for next time. The key for me is always that the quality of the questions we ask ourselves is directly related to the quality of life we have. So if you're asking yourself the right quality of questions, you will get the right quality answers and the right outcome. So there is no failure, there's only feedback. We can all improve all the time.

Speaker 1:

So again, sit back and think right, what would I do differently next time? How can I get the best out of this situation, ready for next time? And make the list and integrate those improvements into your next performance and then make them second nature. You've got valuable feedback. Use it, don't waste it. You've just had performed in the environment you want to perform in and you've got real world feedback. Capture that feedback, analyze it and put it to good use, even again, doing this in everyday situations make it second nature, you'll think, yeah, I'll do that differently next time. This is how I'm going to change, by making it a habit even in low pressure situations. It will become more of a habit in the high pressure situations. That's the key for me Use that feedback and be proactive with it.

Speaker 1:

That's it for today's episode. Hopefully you've got something of value out of the episode that you can go away and apply and try for yourself. Please, if you get a moment, subscribe to the podcast Followers on whatever platform you're on it. Just again, the more subscribers, more followers we have, the more notes we get, the more people get to listen and I can share these valuable tidbits and pieces of information with Until next time. That was the Winning Edge Coach podcast. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the Winning Edge Coach podcast and you'd like to help support the podcast, please hit the subscribe button and, if possible, leave a rating or a review. Also, please feel free to share the podcast with others and post about it on your favorite social media platform. Thanks again, I'll see you next time.