Practice Under Pressure Until the Reflex Disappears

Imagine a specialist realtor named Leonor who sells houses on the lake. She has three answers on her phone, stripped to the facts. She has said each one at a slower pace with a question after it. She has said each one 20 times since, and they sound like a woman who knows the lake. One of them is for the question she dreads, about her price.

On Tuesday she sits in the Haverfords’ living room. Mr. Haverford says that the agent they met yesterday would list the house at $4.2 million. He asks why Leonor’s number is lower. Her answer on the phone is one sentence: “Three lake houses sold in the last 12 months, and all three sold for less than they were first listed at.”

What comes out is 90 seconds long. It starts with “absolutely” and lists her 14 sales on the lake. It ends with how much she would love to sell this house. Mrs. Haverford thanks her and says they will be in touch. They list with the other agent.

Leonor drives home with the one-sentence answer still on her phone. It did not fail her. It did not come out. Alone in her kitchen, nothing was at stake, so she had no reason to say “absolutely.” In the Haverfords’ living room, two people who could judge her were waiting to hear why her number was lower. The pressure that set the habit off was not in the practice.

The next week, she asks Dmitri, a colleague at her office, to play Mr. Haverford for 20 minutes after work. She gives him the three questions her answers are for, and the list of habits from her recording. His job, she tells him, is to make the habits come back. The first evening, he asks politely, and she records the round on her phone. On the recording there are no habits. The second evening, he asks the price twice, and “absolutely” is back once. He asks that way again until a round shows no habits, and then he adds the other agent’s number. Then he adds looking at his watch while she answers.

After six evenings, Dmitri cannot find a question that brings a habit back. The next month, in the Pembertons’ living room, her heart is going before anyone asks a question. Mr. Pemberton says another agent would list higher. Leonor says her one sentence, at the pace she used with Dmitri, and stops. Mr. Pemberton asks which of the three houses was most like his. They give her the listing.

Leonor’s heart was going in both living rooms. What changed is that Dmitri set the habit off, evening after evening, until it stopped coming. The pressure was still there. The habit was not, and the one sentence was all that was left.

Golfers trained to feel self-conscious stopped choking under pressure

In 2001, Sian Beilock and Thomas Carr published four experiments on why a skilled person comes apart under pressure. They worked with golfers putting, and with a simple arithmetic task that nobody choked on. A golfer who has putted for years no longer thinks about the stroke. Under pressure, the authors found, that is what goes wrong. The golfer starts paying attention to a stroke that runs better on its own, and the putting gets worse.

Then they tried two kinds of training to see whether either one would stop the choking. One group practiced putting while doing a second task at the same time. Another group practiced in a way that made them self-conscious while they putted. The second task changed nothing. The self-conscious practice took the choking away. Under pressure, these golfers did not choke.

The experiments were about golf, and the step from a putting green to a client’s living room is the course’s own. Here is the step. Your answer about your price is a stroke you have made many times. In front of a client who can judge you, you start watching yourself make it. While you watch, “absolutely” and the list of sales come out. The golfers who were used to feeling self-conscious while they putted had nothing new to watch for. So the course asks you to practice with someone watching, because a watcher is the surest way to feel self-conscious.

A problem practiced once still failed under pressure, and one practiced 50 times held

In 2004, Beilock and three colleagues ran three more experiments, this time with math problems. Pressure hurt people only on the hard problems they had not practiced. When people practiced those problems until the answer came straight from memory, the pressure stopped hurting them.

The third experiment is the useful one. Each problem was practiced once, twice, or 50 times, and then all of them took a test under pressure. The hard problems practiced once or twice still went wrong under pressure. The problems practiced 50 times did not.

Leonor said her price answer 20 times in her kitchen, and it still did not come out. So the number of times is not the whole answer. The practice has to have the pressure in it, as the golfers’ did. There also has to be enough of it that the answer comes by itself. With Dmitri, she said the sentence for six evenings while someone tried to knock it loose. By the end, it came out in the Pembertons’ living room before she decided to say it.

A performance psychologist says to get used to pressure in daily practice

Noa Kageyama is a performance psychologist in New York. He teaches at Juilliard and works with musicians on playing well under pressure. In a post on his site, he describes two studies by a Dutch researcher, Raôul Oudejans. In the first, two national-level basketball teams practiced free throws for five weeks. One team practiced them under pressure, with a prize, a camera, and the coach watching. The other practiced them as usual. At the end, the team that practiced as usual still shot worse under pressure, as both teams had at the start. The team that practiced under pressure shot better under pressure than without it.

In the second study, expert dart players practiced on a climbing wall. One group threw from a foot off the ground, and the other from 12 feet up, holding on with one hand. Tested high on the wall, the low group’s throws got worse. The high group threw as well up there as on the ground.

The studies, he writes, “suggest that yes, we can indeed train ourselves to perform well even when we’re nervous.” They were experiments, he notes, not real games. Still, his advice is not to wait. There is “a lot to be gained by looking for ways to acclimate to performance even in our daily practice,” instead of leaving it until the week of the performance. The basketball team practiced under the same pressure it would be tested under. The dart players practiced at the height they would throw from. That is why Dmitri’s job was to make it harder each evening. The practice had to carry as much pressure as the living room would, or as close to it as Dmitri could get.

Why stopping after the first clean round goes wrong

Imagine a caterer named Ottoline who asks her sous-chef to play a hostess for one evening. He asks her three questions, politely, and she records the round. There are no habits on it. She decides the work is done.

At her next meeting, the hostess asks the price. Then her husband asks it again, and says the hotel quoted a third less. Ottoline hears herself list the three families she cooks for and promise that nobody has ever been disappointed. The hostess says she will think about it, and books the hotel.

One polite round was her own kitchen again, with one more person in it. The habit was not set off, so it was not practiced away. The round that counts is the one where the colleague asks the price twice and names the hotel. Her sous-chef has to make each round harder. She stops only when the hardest round he can give her shows no habits.

Playing the client with a colleague is meant to feel silly

Asking a colleague to pretend to be Mr. Haverford can feel embarrassing, and the embarrassment is a reason many people practice alone.

The embarrassment is the point. The golfers in Beilock and Carr’s experiment were trained to be self-conscious, and that is what stopped the choking. Crystal’s Music, a piano school in Cedar Park, tells parents what to have a child do before the recital. The child walks to the piano, bows, introduces the piece, and plays it through “in front of grandparents, siblings, or friends.” “The more familiar performing becomes,” the school writes, “the more confident your child will feel on recital day.” The child’s living room is not the recital, and your colleague is not Mr. Haverford. Both put a watcher in the room, and that is what the practice needs.

How to practice your answers until the habits stay gone

Ask a colleague, or a friend who runs a business of their own, to play your client. Ask for 20 minutes at a time, on as many evenings as it takes. Give them the three questions your answers are for and the list of your habits from your recording. Tell them their job is to make the habits come back. For example, a dog walker can say, “Ask me about the price twice, and look bored while I answer.”
In the first round, have them ask the three questions as a polite client would. Say your three answers at the slower pace, each with its question. Record the round on your phone.
After each round, watch the recording and count the six habits. Write the count down with what your colleague added in that round.
Each round after the first, your colleague adds one way of making it harder. They might ask the price a second time, say another professional quoted less, or cut you off. They might look at their watch while you answer. For example, an event planner’s colleague can say, “The planner we met on Monday said she could do it for less. Why is yours more?”
When a round brings a habit back, repeat that round until it shows none. Only then let your colleague add the next one.
Stop when the hardest round your colleague can give you shows no habits twice in a row. One clean round can be a good evening. The second shows that the answer holds.
In your next client meeting, expect the fast heart, and say the answer at the pace you used in the last round. Afterward, write down which question brought a habit back, if one did. That question is the next round you give your colleague.

Next: You will see why “I might be wrong, but” turns a statement into an apology in the client’s ears.