The fastest way to kill motivation? Remove choice.

People don't resist change. They resist being controlled. When you give autonomy, even in small ways, engagement soars.

Want better performance? Start with "What do you think we should do?"

Your attention is finite. Your phone's demands are infinite.

Every notification trains your brain to seek distraction. Every scroll weakens your focus muscle.

The cost? You lose the ability to think deeply about anything that matters.

These five skills are learnable through systematic practice. Most people won't develop them. But those who do will perform brilliantly under pressure whilst others crumble.

Here's the full guide with implementation frameworks: https://www.drdevroy.com/performing-under-pressure/

Visualisation creates familiarity with pressure situations before experiencing them physically.

Generic "imagine success" doesn't work. Effective visualisation is specific, detailed, realistic, and includes recovering from challenges.

Practice recovery, not just perfection.

Self-talk strategies replace automatic negative patterns with trained constructive patterns.

Instructional self-talk guides action. Motivational self-talk regulates emotion.

Brief, positive, present-focused, personalised. Practice hundreds of times until automatic.

Attentional control maintains focus on task-relevant cues whilst filtering distractions.

Pressure narrows attention and increases cognitive load.

Train deliberate attention direction: primary focus where? secondary monitoring what? filtered out completely?

Process goals vs outcome goals: Focus on controllable actions, not uncontrollable results.

"Execute technique" beats "don't fail".

"Ask three clarifying questions" beats "close this deal".

Process focus produces better outcomes than outcome focus.

Pre-performance routines regulate arousal and shift attention from outcomes to process.

Consistent 60-180 second sequences become trained triggers your nervous system recognises.

Practice in low-pressure contexts until automatic, then deploy when pressure peaks.

Pressure situations reveal who's prepared and who's not.

Olympic athletes spend years developing mental skills that allow them to perform brilliantly when stakes are highest.

These same skills transfer directly to business, academia, military, and performing arts.

Here's how:

Resilience isn't built during calm. It's forged in small, controlled doses of stress.

If you only rest when exhausted, you're training fragility. Build capacity before you need it.

Micro-challenges daily > crisis management monthly.

#PerformancePsychology

AI won't replace you. Your inability to adapt will.

Stop fearing the tool. Start mastering it. The gap between those who learn and those who resist widens daily.

Your job isn't safe because you avoid change. It's safe when you become irreplaceable.

AI tools help when you're lonely, but leaning too hard on them can dull real connections. It’s easy to swap deep talks for quick chats with bots. Balance matters – text a friend, call a loved one. Tech can start the spark, but only people keep the fire going.

Your inner voice shapes performance more than talent.

Swap "I can't" for "I'm learning" – self-talk training boosts focus, cuts doubt.

Narrate efforts positively during slumps. Notice the shift: anxiety drops, persistence rises.

Rewrite your script today.

In relationships, assumptions poison trust. Counter it with curiosity: ask why before reacting. Emotional intelligence research reveals this prevents escalation and deepens bonds.

Pause, inquire genuinely. You'll uncover truths that assumptions hide, fostering real connection.

Stress hits hard, but you can widen the gap between trigger and reaction. Use physiological sighs: double inhale, long exhale. Or shift to panoramic vision to calm adrenaline. These help you respond thoughtfully, not impulsively. Build them into your day for unbreakable poise.

Ever chase likes and rankings, only to burn out? Ditch performance obsession – embrace mastery. Hone skills for your own sake, not comparison.

Research shows this builds resilience, cuts anxiety, and drives real progress.

Track personal gains, ignore the scoreboard.

Workplaces call it "accommodation". Neurodivergent individuals call it "basic requirements".

The difference matters. One implies you're broken. The other recognises the environment was never built for cognitive diversity.

Design for variation, not the mythical average brain.

Your workload didn't increase. The cognitive load did.

Same tasks + more tools + constant context-switching + continuous pressure = mental exhaustion and low output.

Organisations measuring hours worked are tracking the wrong variable. Cognitive bandwidth is the new bottleneck.

Passive social media scrolling lowers wellbeing; active conversation boosts belonging.

The issue isn't the platform – it's your pattern.

Consuming w/o contributing causes fatigue. Engaging intentionally builds connection.

Mental health depends on how you engage, not how long.

Leaders burn out from decision density, not just long hours: the sheer number of choices per hour.

Calendar says 8 meetings. Brain processes 200 micro-decisions.

That's why you're exhausted by 3 pm despite "just talking".

Track decisions, not just time.

#PerformancePsychology