The Last Word

By Jackson Boyd | Posted: Monday July 28, 2025

Pressure is something every athlete faces whether you’re competing in front of thousands, playing your first match, or training alone with high expectations.

In sport, pressure can come from everywhere, coaches, teammates, fans, family, and most of all yourself. But what defines success isn’t avoiding pressure, it's how you respond to it.

Pressure can feel overwhelming. Your heart races, your mind spins, and suddenly your strengths feel like weaknesses. But remember pressure exists because the moment matters. It means you care. And that’s a good thing.

Here are some strategies I use to deal with pressure particularly in sport, but these techniques can be applied in any situation you may come across where you feel under pressure. 

First, preparation is key. Confidence grows when you know you’ve put in the work. Train hard, trust your routine, and remind yourself of your progress.

Second, stay present. Focus on what you can control, your effort, your mindset, your next action, not the crowd, not the outcome, not the past.

Third, breathe. Something as simple as a deep breath can reset your focus and calm your nerves. This reset in focus will have a huge impact on your situation whether in sport or another part of your life. 

And finally, don’t fear failure. Every athlete, even the greatest, has failed under pressure. What sets them apart is how they learn from it and come back stronger. 

All these strategies which can be used for dealing with pressure can easily be applied in other areas of your life where pressure may arise such as the school exams coming up at the end of the term. By preparing as best you can, staying present and controlling your effort within the exams, taking a breath and resetting your mind if the pressure becomes too much, and not fearing failure or doubting yourself will lead to you performing better than you would have if you did not take any of these actions. 

Pressure is part of sport and life in general, but so is resilience. Learn to embrace the pressure, not run from it. Because when you do, you don’t just perform better, you grow as a competitor and as a person.

Usain Bolt, the world's fastest man ever, was a testament to these strategies to overcome the pressure of Olympic and world championship sprint finals. All these steps I have mentioned to overcome the pressure of these situations, particularly the first step. Trusting his training and the hours he had put into mastering his craft allowed him to know he could perform at the level he did. He was also one of the most resilient athletes ever as 1 year of training for him could make less than .1 of a second improvement for a whole year's work. As he once said “I trained 4 years to run 9 seconds. People give up when they don’t see results in 2 months. Pressure is part of preparation”. His ability to overcome the pressure on the biggest stage allowed him to become one of the greatest athletes the world will ever see.