Build Mental Toughness & Perform Under Pressure | Dr. Lenny Wiersma
In a Nutshell
Dr. Lenny Wiersma explains building mental toughness through visualization (10-min daily sessions for confidence, coping with failure, familiarization; include emotions/senses), effective self-talk (use second/third-person for psychological distancing, focus on functionality over positivity), and robust belief (distinguish from fleeting confidence via reflections like 3-2-1 journaling and "confidence jars" to counter recency bias). Embrace discomfort without expecting comfort, regulate emotions by labeling and responding thoughtfully, and use tools like HRV biofeedback breathing (4-in-6-out) and cues for in-moment resets. Extreme athletes teach risk regulation, running fear to its end, and betting on preparation over motivation for peak performance under pressure.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
The science and practice of enhancing human performance for sport, play, and life. Dr. Andy Galpin, professor, scientist, and executive director of the human performance center at Parker University, speaks with Dr. Lenny Wiersma, director of sports and performance psychology for the Olympic sports teams at the University of California, Berkeley. Learn tactics and tools to perform at your best mentally, including science of confidence, self-talk, and visualization.
Alex Honnold climbed a skyscraper, physically easy but psychologically challenging. Everyone sees the same things but perceives and feels differently. Extreme sport athletes only proceed if 100% yes; otherwise 100% no due to psychology of risk. Consequence of mistake is death for all, but risk tolerance differs. Honnold builds phenomenal confidence over time; spent a year on stretching routine for a 3-second leg move on El Cap. Most humans have capability for great things but few invest fully.
His focus is superhuman amid distractions like people filming through windows. Performance of a lifetime: eloquent, composed, even having fun, standing at ledge looking down. Joy is a big motivator. 100% certainty he would succeed. Study extreme sports for lessons applicable to all.
Misnomer: Alex Honnold doesn't feel fear due to depressed amygdala function on fMRI, minimizing fear response. This dehumanizes and is academically untrue.
Dr. Wiersma worked with big wave surfers on first sabbatical and extreme backcountry skiers/snowboarders who climb mountains (ascent and exhausted descent both dangerous). They know weather/oceanography as well as PhDs. Not born able to do it; start small, make mistakes, learn from best, commit to expertise. Virtually none use formal mental skills training.
Thrill-seeking rarely motivation; compare to airplane turbulence—no one likes fearing death. Passion for skill drives them, not risk of failure/consequences.
Confidence regulation critical: overconfidence dangerous. In traditional sports, being 'in the zone' ('I can't miss') leads to temperature jacks—stop immediately. Extreme athletes recognize 'feeling too confident,' pull back. Tells: getting away with cutting corners/luck; paddle back to channel in big wave surfing to regulate, feel ocean energy.
Elite big wave surfers focus on wipeout scenarios, prepare plans: 'If it happens, here's my plan'—psychological safety net alleviates fear (fear remains). Time spent visualizing, holding breath, flexibility, positioning; build from smaller instances. Once mastered, shift to wave performance.
Run fear to the end: Imagine worst case and live it mentally.
Visualization tops all researched mental skills over 30 years; recently understood true power.
Purposes:
- Confidence: Visualize doing well, e.g., kid pretending game-winning free throws/bottom 9th baseball at-bat.
- Coping: Imagine what goes wrong and coping response. Michael Phelps example: Beijing 2008, 200 butterfly (final event to break Mark Spitz's 7-gold record from 1972), goggles filled with water, swam 7/8 laps blind. Coach Bob Bowman trained sans goggles early; visualized cap ripping (turn inside out), stroke counts.
- Familiarization: Preview new environment (e.g., locate ready room, walk timing, lights for swimmers; pre-visit podcast room).
- Technical adjustment: Mental reps for changes (e.g., college tennis players adjusting ingrained swings).
How to do it right:
- Define why first: confidence, coping, etc.; pick 2-3 short, repeatable actions per session.
- Include emotion (more important than visual); feel it.
- Not before bed—arouses brain, prevents sleep.
- Short sessions: 10 minutes daily (or twice) with full focus is huge win for busy elite athletes (e.g., Cal Berkeley Olympic sports: 54 current/former in Paris 2024, top-10 medal country equivalent; balance D1/highly ranked sports + academics).
- Use senses/equipment: goalie gloves, surfboard/wetsuit/wax smell, tech suit/goggles/cap—associates emotions with gear.
Sponsor: Momentous supplements (third-party/NSF tested); new Fiber Plus prebiotic for gut health/energy/recovery (95% Americans fiber-deficient).
Dr. Lenny Wiersma recommends 10 minutes of visualization as a standard protocol, especially ramping it up a couple weeks before competitions like NCAA for divers or tennis. If done right, 10 minutes can change your entire performance. He only asks athletes to visualize if he believes it will be a good investment for them.
Performance psychology now extends beyond sports to performing arts, medicine, military, and more. For example:
- Before an exam, visualize sitting at your desk, coping with nerves, breathing when the professor hands out exams, self-talk when reading the first questions, and regulating yourself.
- For a high-stakes work presentation with funding on the line, visualize the performance.
Personal anecdote: Wiersma officiated a wedding for 200+ people in sign language for a former deaf athlete he coached to fluency. It was 30 years ago in Long Island, 100 degrees, wearing a suit. He visualized massively beforehand, feeling like he'd done it 100 times.
Advice: Pick a high-stakes scenario, visualize what might go wrong and coping through it, or exactly what you want to happen and the feeling afterward. It's super powerful.
Sleep stories help unhook from ruminating thoughts about tomorrow's competition, exam, or job interview by providing detailed imagery that induces cognitive fatigue and sleep. Practice vivid visualization with them (e.g., popular train ride stories) to build skill for performance visualization like presenting to a board or class.
Host's tip from years ago for athletes with racing minds: Recall the 1995 Seattle Mariners starting lineup (childhood memory). Engage hard in non-stressful recall where failure doesn't matter to induce cognitive fatigue and fall back asleep. Now at Absolute Rest, they use sleep stories.
Key insight: Don't try to turn your brain off; turn it in a different direction. Rumination is like a hook—unhook by thinking about something else.
Make visualization realistic with equipment, clothing, uniforms. Start sessions with easy, confident elements first. About half of athletes visualize success; others visualize messes—avoid seeing yourself failing.
Visualize lead-up routines (morning eating, dressing), small key aspects to nail, or link everything start to finish.
Balance performance vs. potential failure: Start with confidence-builders, not failures. Recreate past failures post-performance (not immediately, when emotional) to analyze thoughts, self-talk, coping, breathing. Adjust to what helps vs. hurts. Seeing failure is okay if turning it into better results.
Review best past performances: Note morning behaviors, pre-performance thoughts—often different from poor performances.
Every performer is unique; elite athletes differ—one negative spirals one, forced positivity spirals another. Err toward forgiveness over perfectionism, as pressure is intense. Negative self-talk can sometimes pull you out of darkness.
Self-talk is more powerful than visualization in-the-moment, especially for self-initiated tasks like golf shots or free throws. Golfers visualize every shot; caddies say, "See it? Feel it? You got the feeling?" then stop talking.
Core principle: Don't categorize as positive vs. negative—ask if effective or not. Negative can be effective; positive ineffective.
- Write 2-3 admired/trusted people (2 personal, 1 field leader like Alex Honnold).
- Imagine a friend in a stressful scenario—what would you say?
- Use second-person ("you" or name) or third-person self-talk for distance from emotion.
- Imagine what one of those people would say to you in their voice, using your name.
- Use nicknames (e.g., Wiersma's "Lend Dog" since childhood) for focus.
Self-talk = coaching yourself. We're great coaching friends because not emotional. Greatest distance: Trusted authority's voice.
Evidence: In-moment thoughts predict confidence and happiness more than other factors.
Reflect: In performance, does self-talk help or hurt? Why?
Host example: Enjoys effective feedback (calls it negative); will use second-person.
First-person is reactive/emotional/ineffective. Distance reduces emotion, provides objective assessment without self-beating.
Exercise: List challenging scenarios, friend's response text—use that on yourself.
Resources:
- Chatter by Ethan Kross (University of Michigan)—loans to athletes.
- The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey (1977 original + updated)—first sports psych book Wiersma read; has both copies.
Second-person self-talk tends to be more forgiving and fairer than first-person, coming from a place of 'you're fine, you're making this worse than it is.' It can be forceful yet positive: 'Andy, that's not the Andy I used to know. You're so much tougher than that, Andy. Come on, dude. I know you're going to get through this. You're going to be fine. So sit up a little straighter.' Research shows this distanced self-talk perspective is virtually always more effective.
Most powerful in the moment during the activity, rather than before or after.
The phrase 'comfortable being uncomfortable' is semantically impossible, like 'be warm when you're cold.' The intent is to try to be less uncomfortable, but realistically, embrace being more uncomfortable—success requires it. Forget about being comfortable; it won't happen and shouldn't be sought. Ken Wright's upcoming book: Everything You Want Is on the Other Side of Hard aligns with rejecting comfort.
Endurance athletes can't avoid pain; e.g., a 200 breaststroker's lungs on fire in the last push-off is necessary for world records or NCAA qualification. Stress comes from unrealistic expectations of comfort, not discomfort itself. Let go of those expectations beforehand.
Speaker left tenure position at Fullerton for the unknown, scariest decision, leading to greater happiness. Transitioned to esports with 16-year-old multi-millionaires who grind without warm-ups. Industry tanked six months later after 20+ years of job security, forcing job search—never regretted it. During Rocket League World Championship scrims, knowing job change loomed, repeated: 'just freaking bet on yourself.'
Confidence is the most important yet complex factor in performance, fleeting and moment-to-moment. Relying on it sets you up for failure; even greatest achievements precede low confidence. At elite levels, facing the best doesn't feel good.
Belief is foundational and structured. Distinguish: 'Do you believe vs. do you feel confident?' 'Bet on yourself' is belief.
Grandfather teaches fishing spots on a lake. Crystal clear water: see fish = confidence ('I see it, I feel it'). Murky water: can't see but throw line anyway based on knowledge = belief (consistent, takes time to build/break). Athletes fixate on visibility, letting it dictate belief.
Confidence often from recency: recent feelings/performances, sleep, nutrition, warm-up. Most performance occurs in 'murky water.' Build robust confidence from multiple sources to make it hard to break:
- Physical performance
- Mental training time
- Self-care (recovery/preparation away from sport: training room, dorm routines, rolling out, stretching, supplements, visualization)
Elite athletes nail self-care; it can't be undone by poor warm-up. Job: build confidence proactively, fight for it in competition, don't let recency sway it. Other sources: feedback, social support.
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Motivation (like confidence) is unreliable, feels great but crashes. Discipline (like belief) is consistent.
Distinguish feeling confident from nervousness—they coexist. Performance anxiety/nerves ≠ lack of confidence. Example: National champion men's rower felt nauseous pre-IRA final but succeeded. Nerves can signal readiness.
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Confidence jar: Write daily achievements (practice successes, discipline despite low motivation), add to jar. Review before big competitions to counter recency.
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321 Reflection (e.g., weekly Sunday night):
- 3 things done well/proud of/confidence-building
- 2 things struggled with/failed
- 1 focus moving forward
Records trends over time.
Like noticing your car (Rivian truck) because primed, regular reflection primes noticing confidence sources ('Oh, there it is'). Takes long-term commitment; mindset changes slowly.
Write physically (paper/phone notes), not just mentally—gets it out of brain. 321 weights positives (3:2), acknowledges bad, ends with forward action/intent. Builds patterns/themes, turning into self-talk and underlying belief. Reflection counters Sisphus feeling, coach feedback focus on improvements; internally reinforce positives/joy.
No such thing as true overconfidence; what seems like it is cutting corners, leading to upsets. Favorites lose when not preparing like underdogs. Be self-honest, surround with trusted people for real feedback: 'You're actually not that good at that as you thought.' Necessary to avoid overestimating and ignoring decrements.
'I know you think that about yourself. However... That actually is more of a decrement than you think it might be. And if you don't change that, then it's going to come'
Overconfidence is rare in high-performance settings because performers care deeply about their tasks. Caring creates a threat perception from potential failure, leading to anxiousness that rattles confidence.
Confidence, belief, and resilience are distinct. Resilience can exist without high confidence when passion drives persistence through setbacks. Passion fuels resilience even when confidence wavers.
Confidence and belief form a long-term system that remains stable. Confidence fluctuates due to factors like lacking mental toughness, poor performance, mistakes, or physical fatigue.
Mental toughness: Ability to perform best under any circumstance, regardless of unfavorable conditions, unexpected events, or equipment issues (e.g., using a different tennis racket).
Key components include confidence and coping skills. Coping involves acceptance of uncontrollable circumstances, reducing their power. In adversity (linked to resilience), use coping tools to perform effectively.
Emotional regulation is massive in mental toughness. Sports like tennis are highly emotional, which is why people watch and play them. Knowing the result removes emotion (e.g., can't watch recorded games).
Shift from emotional control (e.g., suppress nervousness or frustration) to emotional regulation. Science supports regulating responses rather than controlling emotions.
Avoid labeling emotions as positive or negative; every emotion serves a purpose. People name only ~10 emotions, but there are hundreds.
Process:
- Label the emotion.
- Understand why it exists.
Example: Regret feels unpleasant but prevents repeating hurtful actions.
It's never the emotion that we experience that's going to have any impact on our lives whatsoever. It's how we respond to that. It's what we do next.
Book: Dealing with Feelings by Mark Brackett (title criticized).
Example: Road rage—getting cut off isn't the problem; escalating response (flipping off, confrontation) ruins the day.
With athletes: Label emotion, explore why, then decide next action. Emotions last seconds; pause, breathe, ask "What's next?" This neutralizes emotion's power, even in emotional environments (coaches, fans, teammates).
Co-regulation (emotional contagion): Emotions intensify with others (e.g., whiskey/wine tastes better with liked people; movies/music more powerful in groups). Like mirror neurons.
In high-pressure work: Identify athlete's emotion, decide whether to match (validate) or counter (e.g., boost confidence if afraid).
Coaches' responsibility: Adults who've been there. Read the locker room (e.g., halftime, down two goals—if too light, up intensity; if too negative, inject positivity).
Apply to work, spouses, co-workers: Mirror or counter emotions.
Seahawks CB Tariq Woolen makes big stop late in game vs. Rams, trash-talks on their bench, gets flag (Rams keep ball). Next play: Rams target him, score TD. Stadium boos (115 dB shift); team appears mad (though unclear).
Seahawks still won.
Self-talk as Woolen: "Move on. The game's not over. Next play. Make a stop."
Focus: Return to present. He anticipated win, got excited, overdid it.
Risk: Overpressing to compensate (e.g., double route—fake one way, go other due to aggression), leading to another mistake.
As coach/teammate:
- Direct to regulate physiology: Deep breath, downregulate while walking to huddle ("Come down. Get focused.").
- Say: "It's over. What's next? We got to make a stop. Just do your job. Don't do too much or too little."
Physical anchors:
- George Kittle's forearm tattoo: Reset button (taps to recenter).
- Tennis racket eye/handle wrap or wrist tape with phrases/reminders (e.g., "reset").
- Teammate: Hand on shoulder, eye contact, "Right here, take a breath with me. Let's go. Make a stop."
Example: Pro team player targeted to tilt emotionally—wrote office phrases on wrist tape, glanced at it.
Unified team language: Short visuals/phrases for shared understanding (e.g., men's soccer ACC playoffs: Illegal tackle to provoke; all said same phrase, stayed composed: "We're right here.").
Distinction: Emotional regulation = "What do we do now?" vs. control = "Don't let it show."
UFC: 5-min rounds, 1-min breaks (30-40s coaching). No timeouts.
Example (Sean O'Malley, coaches Tim Welch/Brandon): First 10s: "Be right here." (implies breathe; pre-trained cue). Then 2-3 points.
Electrolyte drink (1,000mg sodium, 200mg potassium, 60mg magnesium; no sugar). Hydration critical; 1% dehydration impairs performance. Need electrolytes beyond water, especially sweating.
In UFC fights, corner coaching styles vary: tactical instructions like "he's doing ABC, run this play or do this move next," versus no tactics, just hype like a slap in the face. Fans criticize both—tactical coaches for not hyping enough, hype coaches for not giving advice. There's a time and place for each; sometimes no technical input is needed, just presence.
As a corner coach—or leading children or teams in pressure—determine needs by knowing the individual beforehand. Coaches must adapt to what each athlete needs, even among 20 athletes. Ask directly: "In situations like this, what do you need from me?" This is coaching to the athlete, not your style. Best coaches adapt; know needs and wants in advance. Distinguish: athlete might want to "just breathe," but coach says, "I'm here to give one or two things to think about." Pre-discuss to avoid emotional decisions in the moment.
Coaches often skip this prep; they're performers, emotional, on edge—sometimes more than fighters. Fighter's mind races during five-minute rounds, absorbing info; in that one-minute break, avoid overload. Provide a detachment space for mental fatigue to clear before technical input registers. Keep advice simple, nothing new; use pre-agreed phrases the athlete knows.
Example with Cal tennis teams: stands overlook courts, allowing observation of player routines (breathing, towel use) and coach feedback. Head coach excels, using phrases like "Go fishing"—his mental image from playing elite tennis: stressed between points, he'd close eyes, visualize lake for down-regulation. Athlete knows exactly what it means; simple, familiar, effective.
1989 Super Bowl, 49ers vs. Bengals, down by three, 92 yards to drive, under two minutes left. No in-ear mics; sideline huddle in end zone, team tense. Joe Montana spots John Candy in stands, points: "Look, guys, there's John Candy. Can you believe he's here?" Offensive lineman's reaction melted tension: spotted celebrity, saw QB composed. Shifted focus—"That's our quarterback, not throttled. Let's win." Demonstrated peripheral awareness in big moment.
Coaches, often former athletes, need performance support. Pre-plan conversations for high-pressure moments. Many coaches hire/use sports psychologists or mental performance coaches more than players—focus on coaches' self-improvement, emotional control/regulation. Same tools apply: visualization, self-talk, emotion regulation, home base.
Research on super-elite athletes vs. elite: super-elite feel they need to win (life over if not), perfectionism. Many become coaches, imposing those traits on less capable athletes—must recognize this. Coaches face more stress/pressure than athletes; all eyes on them to stay clear, unemotional.
Working with coaches is hardest yet favorite job: difficult but rewarding.
Identify needs (energy vs. tactics) via observation. Post-event reflection: trusted stranger or total stranger only get heard. Notebook observations: note intent vs. impact. Praise brilliant moments first—"Had to write that down, it was that good"—for reinforcement on leadership, co-regulation, focus, critical feedback. Then address misfires: "You said this, think it landed differently; consider next time."
Earn trust: show up in coach's lounge, rain/wind, successes, failures. Embedded presence essential—not office/Zoom. Common misconception: sports psych for "freaking out" player tanking big game, via office/phone. Reality: be there in hail, locker room post-loss, crying with them. Admit own mistakes: "Mental loss on me, won't happen again."
Distinct from sports psychology/psychiatry/mental health (not disease-focused). Active coaching for excellence/performance using clinical psychology insights. Advice to teams: go all-in (full staff member) or go out—no part-time consultants. Like strength coach/physical therapist: must be in-building.
At Cal: 4 full-time mental performance consultants for 30 teams (unique at collegiate level). Available for 1:1s, practices, benches, travel, locker rooms—full servicing of coaches, athletes, staff. Provides context: athlete mentions coach comment, consultant saw it, offers perspective.
Biofeedback connects psychology/physiology; early sports psych focused on nerve management/down-regulation techniques. Shows why (e.g., breathing).
Example session: Athlete dislikes pre-race feeling (mind racing, tightening post-warmup). Use HRV biofeedback:
- Hook up, explain heart rate screen, sympathetic/parasympathetic.
- Talk through concepts (athletes love nerding out), whiteboard: extend exhale effect on heart rate, coherence (sympathetic/parasympathetic balance), ideal pattern.
- Eyes closed, guide breathing; open eyes—screen matches whiteboard exactly.
Protocol: ~10-second cycle (e.g., 4 in, 6 out)—extended exhale lowers heart rate.
Powerful: athlete sees control, knows what/why/when. Builds belief (e.g., "go fishing" now proven). Follow-up: train without immediate feedback, reveal later—reinforces. Simple: slow down, compose via breathing; cognitive control over heart rate (psych → physio → psych). Undeniable via electrical signals.
The 4-6 second breathing pattern (4 seconds in, 6 seconds out) was found to have the greatest impact on HRV coherence. HRV coherence is the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, measured by the consistency of the pattern in regulating up and down, and the distance between the peak and valley of that cycle, indicating strength. This tool shows athletes what happens physiologically when they use it, linking it to performance and feelings, without proving anything to them.
Somewhere between 4-6 seconds is most people's resonance breathing frequency; one speaker is generally 7.5-8 seconds, another higher—neither positive nor negative. A program adjusts to find the optimal pattern: athletes follow a dot (breathe in as it goes up), then convert to counting for competitive environments.
In a demo, a screen showed a black-and-white landscape. Instructions: "make the screen get color." Software measured HRV coherence and balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic systems; high coherence added color, loss reverted to black-and-white. Athlete figured it out without knowing internals, developing transferable regulation skills usable in meetings or traffic, unlike rigid counts like "three in, hold."
Athletes learn they can't force it—the harder they try, the worse. Hyper-competitive ones struggle with numbers at high heart rates (e.g., 190 bpm). Mantra: "You cannot control your performance until you can control yourself. Change one thing: breathing—the first thing you do when alive, last before you die. Do something thoughtful with it to internalize regulation." When nervous, react then breathe. Send graphs post-session; athletes love them.
HeartMath is most popular: full desktop products or field-use Inner Balance (phone-activated, less expensive). Pair with phone/iPad.
Neurotracker (no affiliation) trains selective attention (focus on relevant stimuli, ignore others like officials, stands, rain) and sustained attention (focus over time)—key for sports like tennis, soccer goalkeeping.
Setup: 3D goggles, screen with 8 tennis ball-like targets. 4 highlight briefly, disappear; targets move in 3D (up/down/side/front/back) for 8 seconds, stop. Identify numbers (1-8) of original 4. Wrong: next trial slower; all correct: faster. 20 trials, 6 minutes total. Score: adaptive speed threshold (speed for 50% accuracy).
Improvements are phenomenal; transferable to tracking ball behind opponents. Opens conversations (e.g., low scores link to poor sleep, finals). Use distractions/misses to probe life issues (sleep, midterms), guide interventions. Immediate feedback on cognitive processes.
In a 10-week Brain Gains pilot (similar setup), participants (friends, KU pilot) did baseline but skipped training due to 15-20 minute sessions causing cognitive fatigue from sustained intense focus—like timed crossword with no breaks. Few life moments demand unbroken cognitive focus; avoidance of mental fatigue mistaken for lack of time.
Physical fatigue often manifests tied attention. For film/study sessions: make effective, less fatiguing.
Attention Restoration Theory: Humans spend days distracted/cognitively fatigued; phone-scrolling breaks worsen it. Solution: 3-5 minute walk in natural setting (no phone/music)—restores focus, reduces fatigue. Accessible for daily jobs.
Film sessions: break up (not 60-90 minutes post-practice/shower/dinner when tired). Do pre-practice, small segments (e.g., 20 minutes pre/post). Engage like professor: ask questions, have athletes explain—keeps focused/on toes. Include positive footage for confidence/motivation (most are negative). Embed 3-2-1 approach. Some coaches excel; others too long. Ideal: more frequent, shorter (e.g., two days/week).
For mental health: licensed clinical psychologist (with/without sport training). For performance: CMPC (Certified Mental Performance Consultant) from Association for Applied Sport Psychology—rigorous (master's from accredited university, supervised hours, testing, conferences for maintenance). Like physical therapist certification.
Trend: Shift from requiring clinical licensure (NCAA/pro teams) to performance-focused roles. Need master's/PhD, certification for performance psych. Model like Cal: separate mental health referrals; performance staff at practices (e.g., rain with rowing).
Underserved areas: sleep, mental performance specialists in high-performance groups.
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