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1. It's a big competition, and you know you have a chance to do well.


2. You worry about messing up this chance and begin to ask "what if?"


3. To make sure everything goes okay, you try to be extra careful and aware. This leads you to think about things you don't normally have to think about.


4. By thinking about things you know how to do without thinking, your movement is not fluid and athletic and you start making mistakes.


5. As the mistakes build, you panic, make more mistakes, and feel like you've lost control.

Sound familiar? Happens to the best of us -- whether we're an elite or not.

How can choking be overcome?

According to the USOC, have a "Plan B."

Think about it, most of the time we focus on what we will do when the conditions are perfect. We dream of being "in the flow" and work hard hoping to capture that state. Sports psychologists (guilty!) tell us to visualize the "perfect" shot, race, putt, etc.

That's our A-Plan.

However, the pressure of big competitions -- the meaning we attach to them -- almost guarantees that we'll be distracted, or worse yet start thinking about what's going on.

So, we need to train in ways that prepare us for the "non-flow" states. Here are 5 things you can do. I've taken the USOC article for coaches and modified the suggestions so they will apply to most of you reading this.

1. Identify specific sport situations that pull you out of your "unconscious" mode and get you thinking. One way to identify them is to think of things make you "careful" when you compete? Knowing these situations can help you address them before they happen.


2. Simulate competitive situations as much as possible. If you are in a sport where penalties are given for breaks in form, have someone act as judge while you practice. If you participate in a sport that draws a large crowd to competitions, practice with people watching you. If you compete in a sport where you will be racing against others, make sure you don't always train on your own. At a conference I heard two professional golf coaches say that they never worked with athletes at the driving range because it was nothing like being on the course.


3. Talk about choking with someone, especially if you've choked before. There is nothing about worrying about choking (or about choking again) to make you think too much.


4. In stressful athletic situations, practice focusing on one thing you know you can do right. The ability to focus on one thing (often times a self-talk phrase) will help keep your mind from filling up with distracting, unnecessary, and unproductive thoughts.


5. Compete as much as you can. There is nothing like a competitive situation to prepare you for the next one. Keep in mind that competing is a learning experience and that we can learn as much (maybe even more) from our "off" competitions as we can from the ones where we are "on."

There's a wonderful quote in the USOC article that I'll close with. It comes from a Winter Olympic Gold Medalist.