64 | Why Your Brain “Chokes” Under Pressure (And How to Break the Cycle)

• Why does your brain freeze under pressure?
• Why do simple tasks suddenly feel impossible to start?
• What if you’re not lazy, unmotivated, or broken, but stuck in the same pressure cycle athletes face when they choke?

This episode is part of Jessica’s series, What Athletes Can Teach You About Anxiety, where she uses lessons from sports to explain how anxiety, pressure, confidence, and self-doubt show up in everyday life. 

In this episode, Jessica Davis breaks down what happens when anxiety, overwhelm, and pressure make you feel frozen. Using sports as the example, she explains why even skilled athletes miss shots when the moment feels too big, and why the same thing happens in everyday life with schoolwork, job applications, cleaning, responsibilities, and decisions.

If you’ve ever felt stuck even though you wanted to move forward, this episode will help you understand why pushing harder does not always work. Jessica explains how pressure builds, why big lists sometimes make anxiety worse, and how small wins help your brain rebuild trust.

What You’ll Learn in this Episode:

• Why your brain can “choke” under pressure
• How anxiety and overwhelm make it harder to start
• Why staring at a huge to-do list can increase stress
• Why taking a break sometimes turns into avoidance
• How athletes rebuild confidence through small reps
• Why the easiest win is often the best place to start
• How the “one rep method” helps you create momentum
• How AI can help you break overwhelming tasks into smaller steps
• Why momentum often comes before motivation
• How celebrating small wins helps rebuild confidence and self-trust

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Transcript

Why We Choke Under Pressure

Jessica Davis 0:07

You know that moment in a big game when everything is on the line and the best player in the court, the one who's made the shot a thousand times, just misses. There was so much pressure. The intensity increased, and there was so much at stake. In that moment, everything became a thousand times harder. That's called choking under pressure. And it doesn't just happen to athletes. If you ever stared at a to-do list and done nothing, opened your laptop and closed it again, sat down to start something and ended up scrolling for two hours wondering what is wrong with you. Today I'm going to show you what's actually happening in your brain when that happens. Why trying harder hasn't been fixing it, and the one thing that actually starts to move you forward.

Welcome Plus Free Toolkit

Jessica Davis 0:58

Hi, and welcome to Block Out the Noise, a space to quiet the noise of anxiety, self-doubt, and overthinking. I'm Jessica Davis, licensed therapist, mindset coach, and the creator of the Courage Method. I've sat across so many clients who looked completely fine on the outside and felt totally frozen on the inside. They were smart, motivated people. They genuinely wanted to move and had no idea why they felt so stuck. But once they figured out how to unlock what was holding them back, they knew they could find their way through anything. Before we jump in, go grab the anxiety survival tool, get in the show notes. No, seriously, go grab it. It's packed with coping stills, audio tools, a full breakdown of the courage method, and a guided meditation, and it's all completely free. Also, quick reminder this podcast is here to support and guide you, but it is not a replacement for talking to someone in real life. If you're struggling with your mental health, please reach out to a therapist. And if you're in crisis, contact emergency services or a local helpline. You don't have to go through it alone. All right, let's jump

The Real Cost Of Staying Frozen

Jessica Davis 2:06

in. I want you to understand what's actually at stake. When you stay frozen, it isn't just one missed thing. It's the assignments that turned into two, then five, then ten. It's the grade that stops reflecting how capable you actually are. It's the work task that slips long enough that people start to notice. It's the pile that keeps growing while you keep telling yourself you'll get to it when you feel more ready. And the longer it sits, the heavier it gets to the point where it feels harder than ever to start than it did before. If you've ever tried to push through, you know how this goes. Maybe you made a list. And honestly, list can help. I'm a big proponent of lists. I love writing lists. But have you ever written a list out and then just stared at it? I know I have because when I really looked at the list, the list was so overwhelming that I just took a break. Sometimes seeing the full size of what's waiting for you makes it harder to start. Other times, maybe you do what I did after looking at the list. You take a break and you think, okay, I'm just gonna give myself grace and take a step back. So you grab your phone and you start scrolling or you're researching things. And before you know it, it was fun, but you're still in the same place. Once you actually get done with the time that you've been scrolling or just trying to get away, you realize that the heaviness is still there. And so you're left with trying to figure out how do I navigate this now, right? The first option of writing a list didn't work. The second option of taking a break only just pushed off something that you know you need to get done. Neither one of these is really working because at the end, all you're doing is increasing your overwhelming feelings instead of providing a way through it. And here's what I want you to know before we really jump in, because everyone has been in this place, the place where everything feels like too much and you just want to quit, where the pile feels so big that it starts to feel pointless to even begin. You are not the only one who's ever sat here. Trust me, we all have been there. But this moment isn't about what you haven't done so far. It's about how you want to enter this next phase because you have a choice right now. You can either let your mind tell you that you can't, that you've already proven that to yourself, that it's too late or too hard or too much, whatever. Or you can fight back and remind yourself that you have always had it within you to do what you needed to do. The motivation you're waiting for isn't going to come from someone else. It isn't going to arrive one day out of thin air. It's already stirring inside of you. You just have to let it come out.

The One Rep Easy Win Method

Jessica Davis 4:39

Think about a basketball player who's struggling to make shots. They don't step back on the court to prove themselves with the hardest shot. They go back to the short ones, the closest to the hoop, the easiest shots they can make. They stack small wins until their brain starts trusting them again. That's what I want you to do too. Go for the easiest win first. Not the whole project, not the full list, the smallest possible version of the thing that gets you moving. No matter what else happens after that, you've accomplished something you didn't think you could. Then what if you use that as momentum to keep pushing forward? One win builds another. An athlete understands the importance of reps. They don't do just one. They know that's not going to help build their confidence. They know you hit one, then another, then another. And the same thing here: one win builds after another.

Using AI To Break Tasks Down

Jessica Davis 5:30

And if you're sitting there thinking, I don't even know what my easy win looks like, this is where AI can actually be really useful. Not to do the work for you, but because it can help you break things down really well. You can go to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, whichever one. There's tons of them out there now. But you can say, I'm overwhelmed by my room right now. I have clothes on the floor, food to throw out, laundry to wash, bathroom to clean, makeup stuff to pick up, whatever. Just share what is in the room. And then say, I have seven minutes. Help me get an easy win on cleaning this up. It will help you find the smallest possible entry point. So you're not just starting at the whole thing anymore, just the next step, just the one rep. You could do the same thing for a job application or anything that you feel like you're just really honestly pushing off. I've had clients who are athletes and they may not be able to go to camps. They can use AI to help them formulate a program that they complete every day without having to go do some workout or pay someone to do it. One of the things that I started doing was actually just telling AI. I won't label which one, just to be to be fair to the AIs out in the world. But I would give them a list of things that I want to complete for the day, and I'd give them my schedule because I really struggled with prioritization. And it created a schedule for me. And I would go back and forth with this in time to like, oh no, this will take me longer. This task will take me less time. But ultimately, it really helped guide me throughout the day and get more accomplished. And I know that when I use this on a daily basis, I feel so much better about the direction I'm going versus when I don't. When I don't use it, I feel like I tend to still kind of meander on different things. I take much longer to do certain tasks. And I really have to ask myself, was this the best way to spend my time? And I think it's interesting because when I didn't do this, I really felt overwhelmed. I felt stressed. I probably am at a point in my life where I have been the most stressed I've ever been. And these types of tools and techniques really help me to have a better way of getting through the day. And now, right, if I'm using this consistently and not carrying the pile or the guilt or the voice that's telling me that, oh, you never fell through, or it takes you so long to get through this. You start proving to yourself in really small ways that you can do what you say you're going to do, that the other voice gets so much quieter that you can't hear it anymore. It's not gone overnight, but it definitely gets quieter because you really feel like, okay, I am moving forward. Things that felt impossible start feeling like something you can at least begin. And the version of you that was frozen, waiting to be ready, that version of you starts feeling less and less like who you are. I truly hope that you take the time to just try this out because again, it's the quick wins that really help you move forward. Start today with one easy win. When everything feels like too much and you don't really have a plan, create one and use the one rep method. You said it will give you a whole step-by-step. And you can honestly ask AI to just give you one thing at a time. Sometimes I'll say, just give me one task. And when I say done, give me the next. And so that way I don't have this full long chat with AI that's like, okay, I'm overwhelmed by just trying to read all of this. AI loves to give you way more information than need be. So sometimes, yeah, I'm like, just tell me the one task. And when I say done, done, move to the next. So there's so many different options on ways that you can help optimize your day through this. So when everything feels like too much, remind yourself, you can do this. You can take on one thing, process it, and move forward. Think about a sport that you love playing, even if it was years ago. Think about what it felt like to get that small win, right? When you first made your first shot and then you're like, oh my gosh, you feel like you won something major, even though all you did was add two points to the scoreboard. And probably at that point, no one even cares about the score because you're a young kid, or the first time you learned how to actually ride your bike after falling so many times. There's nothing better than the feeling of that accomplishment. That's what we're trying to give ourselves now.

Celebrate Wins To Build Motivation

Jessica Davis 9:52

That feeling that you felt that it like this is a big win for you and celebrating it. You know, I'm a big proponent of embracing the wins, which is E in the courage method. And I think this is the perfect thing of helping you do that. Once you get the rep done, celebrate it. Encourage yourself, embrace it, sit in it, allow yourself to be like, wow, this is something that I was pushing off and I completed it. And I feel better just by doing that. It will help you to start to do more things and you will feel that momentum. Momentum is what leads to motivation. When you are actually accomplishing things that make you feel like, oh, I want to do more, because now you have that taste of like, okay, I get it. The same thing in sports when you have a really good game, right? You feel like there's nothing that can stop you because everything seems to be falling in place, right? You're getting the steel, or you are stopping the ball, or you have gotten a couple of aces in volleyball. All of these different things happen that help you to feel like, okay, I am ready, I can do this. And the same thing. We're trying to create that mentality inside our heads by giving ourselves quick wins and continuously pushing ourselves to remind ourselves of that. And once you do have that feeling, I know it will stick because you won't want to feel how it felt prior. So even when I'm like, okay, today's the day where I'm not gonna sit out and, you know, let AI know my schedule, definitely before I really start my day, I do it because I'm like, oh, I just spent an hour or two hours not getting as much done as I possibly could. And I don't want my day to look like that anymore. So I'm going to sit down and take the time to put that in place. You will have that too.

Share Download Review And Close

Jessica Davis 11:36

If this episode was valuable, I would love it for you to share it with someone who needs to hear this message. Also, don't forget to download your anxiety survival toolkit. It's linked in the show notes. Go grab it. And again, thank you so much for everyone who listens to this podcast. It truly means the world to me to have you listen and show your support. This podcast is really a labor of love. And I really do hope that even if you just implement a couple of these things that I share and you feel like, wow, this has helped me tremendously. I would really love to hear it. You can leave a review to help other people find this as well. But even if you don't, I am so proud of you, and I hope you are proud of you too. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, keep moving forward. Trust yourself and never forget you have what it takes to block out the noise.