How Do You Actually Perform Under Pressure?

Not long ago, someone threw a bit of a rambling question my way:

"Steve—how the hell did you sleep the night before the Olympics? Actually… how did you sleep the weeks before? And how did the pressure not completely eat you alive after all those years of training coming down to a minute?

My first answer was simple: “You learn to sleep because you need it to hit your goal. You handle the pressure because there’s no other choice if you want those decades to mean something.”

People usually laugh at that and assume I’m some kind of ice-veined robot. Truth is, I used to get so nervous before races I could barely move—and I’d puke half the time.

Once we get past the quick answer, that’s when the real conversation starts. Because here’s the thing most people miss about performing under pressure:

It’s not about that moment. Not the start line, not the boardroom, not the job interview, not the conversation that could change your life. By the time you’re in that moment, the work is already done—or it isn’t.

Here’s how to think about your daily actions to make sure you’re always ready to handle pressure, wherever you are…

1. Pressure is built (or broken) in the little steps you take before the big day.

Before my last Olympics, I got pretty obsessive with visualization. And not just for the race itself or the hours before it.

I’d run through every detail in my head a thousand times:

• The night-before routine and falling asleep

• Waking up

• Eating Breakfast

• The shuttle ride to the track

• Every step of warm-up

• The exact cues my teammate Justin Olsen and I would use seconds before the sled moved

"Back set, front set, ready, AND!"—the rhythm we used to explode together into the push… so we’d practice that moments before with our fists acting as our bodies.

I could even visualize the sled down the Whistler track, hitting each corner’s timing to within a second of our actual runs… while sitting on my couch at home.

But here’s what threw me—no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t visualize the finish-line celebration. Arms in the air, big moment… nothing.

Eventually I figured it out: the celebration wasn’t the point. It was visualizng the process—the discipline, the routines, the execution—that mattered. The medal was just the receipt for doing it right.

2. Know your process so well it becomes instinct.

When you understand why every little thing matters, you start doing it naturally.

• Eating right isn’t a chore—it’s part of the picture in your head.

• Sleep isn’t a struggle—you’ve rehearsed it until it’s automatic.

• When nerves creep in, you reset, run the scenario again, and remove the friction.

And here’s the twist: nerves are inevitable. Visualization without nerves is just the warm-up. The real prep happens when you intentionally add pressure to your daily routine—holding yourself to a standard when nobody’s watching.

By my third Olympics, I wasn’t just training physically—I was training my relationship with pressure. That way, when it showed up on race day, it felt like an old friend.

Even now, I set start times for my day—not because someone’s tracking me, but because I am.

3. Don’t just see the picture—feel it.

A lot of people visualize the outside stuff: what they’ll say, how they’ll move, the handshake, the presentation.

But real pressure management? It’s also about training the inside.

That means:

• Knowing what your adrenaline spike feels like—and when you want it.

• Knowing how to calm your mind and nerves to get to sleep—even when your biggest moment is on the other side of the night.

• Feeling the nerves at breakfast and still getting the food down because your body’s been trained for it.

By the time I laid my head down the night before the race, I’d “slept” that night a thousand times in my mind. Same with breakfast. Same with the push. My body already knew what to do—because I’d taught it.

That’s not just mental toughness. That’s mental, emotional, and physical mastery.

Quick Self-Check: Are You Really Ready for Pressure?

• Have you broken down every step of your preparation and performance?

• Have you practiced both the external actions and the internal responses?

• Are your habits aligned because you understand exactly how they connect to your performance?

• Can you visualize your pressure moment and feel calm, confident, and ready?

If you can answer “yes” to those, when the real moment arrives—whether it’s an Olympic race, a crucial negotiation, or a life decision—the confidence you’ve done what you needed to, combined with that actual preparation, takes over.

The nerves don’t get the steering wheel. Execution becomes automatic. Confidence becomes real.

That’s how you beat pressure.
That’s how you win.

- Steve

steve.mesler

27K followers

View more on Instagram