6 Critical Actions to Handle the Pressure to Perform at Work
Everyone comes under pressure to perform at work. Hitting deadlines, impressing your boss and peers, ensuring workstreams and projects deliver the expected results, learning new processes, changing direction quickly, getting your team to deliver more … the list is very long.
How we handle the pressure to perform at work is a big part of our personal success as well as how much we enjoy being at work. The pressure at work can easily become overwhelming if we let it.
Dealing with pressure is a mental state of mind with physical implications. Our bodies respond to pressure with higher heart rate, more adrenaline in our systems and hormones that influence our ability to manage our emotions and memory. Staying calm under pressure reduces the physical responses and helps us keep our focus and avoid the horrible sensations of freezing or experiencing building panic.
6 actions to handle the Pressure to perform at work
- 4 mental actions to reduce the pressure of work
- 2 prioritisation actions for dealing with pressure at work
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4 mental actions to reduce the pressure to perform at work
Reframe challenges and problems as opportunities – The first mental action to deal with pressure
When you are thinking of what you face as challenges and problems, our thoughts and emotions are more likely to be negative “I am not sure if I can solve this problem” or “ I don’t know where to start”. If we think of what you face as an opportunity to grow, to develop and to explore, you are more likely to have a positive frame of mind and be thinking of how to take action i.e. “what do I need to solve this problem” or “I want to find the best place to start”. Positivity reduces the pressure you feel.
Replace “I feel nervous” with “I feel excited”
The second mental action to manage pressure is the replace the thought process of “I feel nervous” – when our hearts start beating faster, our breath gets shallower, when we get tense, we think about what is coming, we replace the “I feel nervous” with thoughts of “I feel excited”. Our physical response to excitement and being nervous is pretty much the same. Wouldn’t you rather face a problem or challenge with the feeling of excitement rather than nerves. I certainly would and I think it helps keep you calmer, more focused and more able to manage the pressure you are under. Keep practicing this mental approach and you start labelling the physical reactions to pressure as excitement rather than nerves.
Turn big problems into small problems
The third mental action to handle pressure at work is to break down a bigger problem into lots of little problems. Mentally, little problems are not as intimidating, are easier to plan how to tackle and easier to start taking action to solve. This is a great way to improve your ability to get things done personally and through your team.
Break down the bigger problem into the first few little problems to overcome on the journey to solving the bigger problem. Choose the first little problem and work to solve it. Them move onto the next little problem. It won’t be long before you are well on the way to solving the bigger problem. Taking action and getting small successes is a great way to reduce the pressure to perform.
Stay mentally positive
The fourth mental action to performing under pressure is to keep mentally positive. Remind yourself of how many problems or challenges you have overcome recently. Picture yourself completing the task, project etc and getting praise from your manager and admiration from your colleagues. Positive thinking pushes you to think about what you can do and what you can control and how to take action rather on dwelling on what you can’t influence, which stops actions being taken. Practice positive thinking.
Your mental approach massively influences how you respond to the pressure to perform at work. The more positive your response, the more action orientated, and the more focused on delivering against what is causing the pressure, the quicker you will reduce the pressure you feel at work. Mentally practice the four actions I have suggested. They have each helped me massively in my career.
Two prioritisation actions for dealing with pressure at work
Important before urgent
Firstly, it is human nature to focus on what is urgent at work. We might have colleagues chasing us and we don’t want to let them down. Stop. Give yourself time to think through your list of tasks, activities, and projects you need to complete. Prioritise your list based on importance before you prioritise based on urgency. Spend more time working on the important items compared to the urgent items. Taking this approach does require you to say no more often. This approach will reduce the pressure to perform you feel because the most important tasks nearly always contribute more to results and your performance than urgent only tasks do.
Finish the task first
The second prioritisation action to deal with pressure at work is to focus on one task or activity at a time until you finish that task. This seems such simple advice, yet how often in our demanding jobs do we really get one task finished rather than being distracted with the latest urgent request? The more you can focus on one task, the quicker you will get it completed because you reduce the time wasted – in refamiliarizing yourself with where you were and what you needed to do next – that chopping and changing between tasks creates.
Always be really clear in your mind what tasks and activities you do that adds the most value to the team and business in which you work. The more time and energy you can devote to these higher value areas, the more value you will create, and in doing so, the less pressure to perform at work you will feel because you will be delivering more than your peers. Bosses and other stakeholders will trust you more and appreciate what you deliver, which in itself reduces the pressure you are under. Work smarter before working harder!
In summary
There is a lot of actions you can proactively take at work to reduce the pressure on you. the 6 actions I have been through are ones that I have found particularly useful in my career.
3 additional tips include:
- When you are feeling stressed and under pressure focus on your breathing. Take deep long breaths to reduce the physical effects of pressure on you, which in turn helps you mentally.
- Do as much preparation as possible, which reduces nerves and the feeling of pressure. This is very useful for meetings, presentations, and other situations where you are in the spotlight.
- Go for a walk round the block or do some physical activity. Movement helps relieve physical tension, which in turn helps you mentally.
It does take time and practice to build your own methods or actions to handle pressure at work. Give yourself the time and do the practice. For instance the first time you present to 30 people, it might be pretty daunting, and you will feel the pressure. After presenting 20 times, you won’t have nearly the same mental and physical responses and you won’t worry about the pressure to perform because you know you have already presented successfully 20 times.
Delivering results in my view is the best way to reduce the pressure to perform at work. Use the actions we have gone through to improve the way you approach delivering at work.
If you have any questions on 6 actions to handle the Pressure to perform at work, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
The pressure to perform is a constant factor of working life. The more responsibility and the greater the impact a position has on the company, the greater the pressure to perform is placed on that role.
I also think who your peers are and who the company is able to recruit is another key factor to determine your competition and therefore the pressure on you to perform in the workplace. These approaches have worked very well for me in demanding jobs in top companies.