What Exactly Is Composure?
Composure is up there when we consider some of the most important mental skills to develop as an athlete or performer. But how many consider composure a mental skill that can be practised and improved?
First, let’s work out what we mean when we say composure.
The dictionary definition is “the feeling of being calm, confident, and in control.” Searching for its meaning in sports suggests “whether emotions dictated how someone performed under pressure.“
I want to explore an example from the perspective of a spectator.
As I alluded to above, the context of the situation usually plays a role. In this example, let’s say we are watching an important match, the scorelines are close, and there comes a crucial moment in the competition where an athlete can influence the outcome. When we watch them, there is a sense of poise, their body language is confident, and their movements are precise and full of conviction.
The play is booming, and the audience applauds. We intuitively know there was pressure at that moment, but the athlete did not seem to waver in their appearance and execution. The assumption we usually make after seeing this is that the athlete must have felt calm to do this. However, in my experience as a performance psychologist, athletes are commonly stressed during these moments.
The answers lie not in how we control the experience of feeling calm but more in staying committed to our performance actions while the stress is present.
The Separation Of Actions From Emotions
Fundamentally, when we talk about building composure, is the expectation that we must change our emotional state or actions? The first step towards composure is understanding our openness to our emotional experience.
If we expect to change our emotional state before taking action, this creates a significantly limited approach to our performance. Essentially, we create a condition on our performance where if it works, then we can do well, and if it does not, then we can’t. Secondly, it shifts our concentration away from the present competition in front of us. We concentrate on an uncomfortable, natural human experience we have little control over.
I want to clarify that I’m not saying we have to give up on a calm state but more about having some psychological flexibility towards it to take the most meaningful actions with or without it.
This allows us to free ourselves from the conditions of our actions, creating the opportunity for the preferred psychological experiences. Have you ever had a moment in your sport or anywhere else where you noticed pressure or emotions building up? Instead of giving into the emotional reaction, you committed to a different, more meaningful action.
Even if the outcome didn’t go your way, did you genuinely regret doing it? There is something liberating about letting go of the emotional control agenda and acting in a way aligned with who you want to be.
If you want to read more about emotions in sports, my colleague, Madalyn Incognito, has written more about them in this article.
A World-Class Example of Sporting Composure
Roger Federer is the first athlete to come to mind when considering composure as a mental skill.
If you could create an example of someone who might have “managed emotions well” after 20 grand slam titles and the way he carried himself on the court, I would have picked RF to be that guy.
However, when you listen to his interviews, time after time, he openly discusses moments where he felt pressure, felt nervous, and noticed that he had thoughts about losing. Yet he manages his body language well, trusts his preparation and prioritises his behaviour on the court first.
Hear it from the man, the legend himself:
When asked about how to stay calm under pressure, his response contains three key elements:
- Be passionate and love the sport (all aspects of it)
- Accepting challenging circumstances and the outcome for whatever it is
- On the court, give everything you have
Having A Process Focus
As I described at the beginning, composure has a situational component. We value it more in high-pressure moments. Part of the psychology of composure is how we interpret pressure. I define pressure as an expectation to create a result. How we perceive our ability to control the results influences what we focus on, which can then influence our performance.
Try answering the question: how much control do you have over the result? For the most part, in sports, so many factors outside our control influence the result. We can execute our abilities flawlessly and still not achieve the desired outcome.
Condor Performance’s founding sport psychologist, Gareth J. Mole, goes into more detail in this article, and I highly recommend giving it some of your time.
Where we place our focus during performance matters a lot. Overfocusing on trying to create a result that we can only partially influence will create an unstable foundation for composure.
Many of the world’s best athletes take a process-focused rather than a results-focused approach.
That means that when a high-pressure situation occurs, composure is maintained by a deep understanding of what they have influence over in that moment: their actions. We observe their ability to be present in their process.
A Summary Of Composure
To summarise, composure is about how we respond to our actions when we know it is essential. Often, a mix of human experiences, thoughts and feelings accompany these moments, which can be uncomfortable. Try to practice psychological flexibility in these moments, be open to those experiences and commit to your process. Our emotions do not have to dictate our actions. Meaningful actions unhooked from emotions are what create fulfilling human experiences.
Composure is an excellent topic I could discuss further, but it is a nice way to get the ball rolling. Please share some of your thoughts or personal experiences in the comments below.
If you are ready to start working one-on-one to develop composure and mental skills, fill out one of our four Mental Toughness Questionnaires, and one of our team will get back to you with your results and information about our services.
