Читать книгу Perform Under Pressure. Change the Way You Feel, Think and Act Under Pressure онлайн

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You’ve only got to speak to Ceri for a few minutes: he doesn’t just tell you how it is, he takes you with him. The things he said and the way he said them struck a chord with me straight away. As well as being a doctor working in forensic psychiatry, he’d been a pro-footballer. He made things real.

Ceri explained what happens to the brain under pressure. He showed us examples of how people react differently under pressure and how they go ‘into the RED’. It all made sense. He helped us understand that it’s OK to feel pressure and showed us ways to manage ourselves differently. I learned it wasn’t about pretending it doesn’t happen, it was about how you deal with it. We started to use the RED–BLUE model and straight away I began to see it work.

Over time, we completely changed the way we dealt with pressure.

In the last 20 minutes of the 2011 final, when we really got tested, I realised how important that was. The match was touch and go and I felt myself going into the RED. It could have unfolded like in 2007, but I got back into the BLUE and thought, ‘This is the moment I have pictured and prepared for.’