Coaching practices for How to Activate Before Performance

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • Right at the moment I need to commit and execute, my mind is still half-cluttered with second-guessing and stray thoughts
  • Right before I perform I keep picturing the win or the trophy, and it gets me amped but my body still feels unrehearsed for the actual moves
  • I’m about to do something that matters and I just feel flat and half-asleep
  • I pump myself up with loud music and psych-up talk before everything, and then I wonder why my hands shake on the parts that need a steady, precise touch
  • When the nerves hit, my warm-up stretches on and on as I fidget and re-do things, and that very dragging-out is the tell that I’m rattled

Practices that may help

  1. Install a focus cue as the final routine step
    End every pre-performance routine with one specific cue that triggers full attentional commitment to the task.
    Pre-Performance Routines, Made Practical
  2. Pre-Performance Routines, Made Practical
    Pre-performance routines are standardized behavioral and mental sequences performed before a performance that direct attention, manage arousal, and activate well-rehearsed movement patterns. Sport psychology research (particularly Stuart Cotterill’s work) and multiple meta-analyses find they reliably improve consistency and reduce performance variability across athletic and skill-based tasks.
  3. Include a brief process imagery step in your routine
    Mentally rehearse the execution process — not the outcome — as part of your preparation sequence.
    Pre-Performance Routines, Made Practical
  4. Activation Strategies for Under-Arousal
    Use brief, targeted techniques to raise activation when you’re too flat to perform well.
    The Yerkes-Dodson Law: Finding Your Optimal Performance Zone
  5. Match your routine’s arousal level to the task demand
    Fine-tune whether your routine should up-regulate or down-regulate your energy before the performance.
    Pre-Performance Routines, Made Practical
  6. Standardize the duration of your routine
    Fix the length of your pre-performance sequence so timing does not become a pressure variable.
    Pre-Performance Routines, Made Practical
  7. Design your pre-performance sequence with clear functional anchors
    Build a sequence where every step serves a specific psychological function — not just habit.
    Pre-Performance Routines, Made Practical
  8. De-activation Strategies for Over-Arousal
    Use targeted techniques to reduce arousal when anxiety or over-activation is undermining performance.
    The Yerkes-Dodson Law: Finding Your Optimal Performance Zone
  9. Practice routine disruption so it doesn’t derail performance
    Train yourself to reset and re-enter the routine after interruptions so disruption never catches you unprepared.
    Pre-Performance Routines, Made Practical
  10. Build a zone-entry routine specific to your IZOF
    Design your pre-performance preparation to reliably produce the specific emotional state your IZOF requires.
    The Zone of Optimal Functioning: Hanin’s IZOF Model

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