As a Division I track and field athlete, I was never formally taught about performance routines or why they mattered. I was just kind of winging it. Looking back, though, I realize I absolutely had a routine. A series of consistent behaviors that helped me feel mentally, emotionally, and physically prepared to compete.

The night before a meet, I would visualize a successful race, eat dinner, look up the heat sheets, research who I was running against, and try to get a good night's sleep. The day of competition, the routine continued. Light breakfast. Long, colorful socks. Makeup—because look good, feel good. Pack my bag. Never forget my spikes. And definitely don't forget my headphones because I was convinced I needed them. Before every meet, my coach would hand me a short letter filled with affirmations and reminders.

Once I arrived, I would walk the track, stretch, complete my warm-up, and settle into competition mode. Then came the race.

"On your marks."

High knees. A jump. A plank. Walk into the blocks.

"Set."

Deep breath.

Pow.

One word in my head:

"Push."

I haven't competed in over a decade, and I can still remember that routine like it was yesterday. As I write this, my body remembers. Sounds great, right? But what else do you notice? The routine was incredibly specific. Almost scripted. Every step had a purpose—or at least I believed it did. Today, as a sport psychologist, I understand that nearly every part of that routine was serving one of three purposes. Some prepared my mind. Some grounded my heart. Some readied my body. The strongest routines don't focus on just one of these domains. They help all three work together.

Why Performance Routines Matter

Pressure changes how we think, feel, and perform. Research suggests that high-pressure situations can disrupt attention, increase self-consciousness, heighten physiological arousal, and interfere with the automatic execution of well-learned skills (Beilock & Carr, 2001; Eysenck et al., 2007). Successful performers are not necessarily less anxious than everyone else. Rather, they tend to demonstrate greater attentional control (focusing on the task at hand), emotional regulation (managing emotions effectively), self-efficacy (trusting in self), and psychological flexibility (adaptability) when pressure arises (Hufton et al., 2024).

One of the most effective tools for navigating pressure is the pre-performance routine.

Research suggests that routines help direct attention, regulate emotions, and create familiarity in uncertain situations (Cotterill, 2010; Mesagno et al., 2024). The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty. The goal is to prepare for it. When we look closely, effective routines tend to serve three interconnected functions: they prepare the mind, ground the heart, and regulate the body.

Preparing the Mind

Many performance routines begin with the mind. Visualization. Strategic planning. Reviewing opponents. Mental rehearsal. Identifying key performance cues. Mindfulness. Meditation. While these practices may look different, they often serve the same purpose: directing attention toward what matters most.

One of the greatest challenges under pressure is that our minds become vulnerable to distraction. We start thinking about outcomes, mistakes, expectations, comparisons, and worst-case scenarios. Attention drifts away from the task at hand.

A well-designed mental routine acts like an anchor—a place for attention to return when it inevitably wanders. Mindfulness-based practices can be particularly helpful because they train individuals to notice distractions and repeatedly return their attention to the present moment (Baltzell & Summers, 2018). Think back to my pre-race routine. Looking at heat sheets, watching previous races, mentally rehearsing the event, and repeating the cue word "push" all served a similar purpose: creating clarity. Effective mental routines help answer one question: What deserves my attention right now?

Grounding the Heart

If I asked you to list the things that matter most to you, what would you name? Your family? Your faith? Your relationships? Your purpose? These answers rarely show up in conversations about performance preparation, yet they may be some of the most powerful resources we have under pressure.

My coach's handwritten notes before every competition didn't make me physically faster. My prayer didn't improve my sprint mechanics. Makeup certainly wasn't changing my biomechanics. And yet all of those practices mattered. Why? Because they connected me to something deeper than the race itself. The notes reminded me that someone believed in me. Prayer connected me to purpose. Personal rituals helped me feel like myself.

Research suggests that factors such as self-efficacy, social support, values alignment, and a stable sense of identity can influence how individuals respond to challenge and adversity (Bandura, 1997; Hufton et al., 2024). When pressure increases, it is easy for our identity to become fused with performance. Every success feels like validation. Every setback feels like a threat. Heart-centered practices help create separation between who we are and what we do.

Some people pray. Some review their values. Some listen to meaningful music, call a loved one, express gratitude, or write a brief intention. While these practices look different on the surface, they often serve the same function: they reconnect us to meaning. Grounding the heart is ultimately about remembering who you are, why you started, and what matters most regardless of the outcome.

Regulating the Body: Where the Mind and Heart Converge

The mind and heart may set the stage, but performance ultimately occurs through the body. Breathing exercises. Stretching. Warm-up movements. Walking the competition venue. Progressive activation. Intentional pauses. These practices help regulate the nervous system and prepare the body to respond effectively to the demands ahead. Importantly, regulation is different from relaxation. Some performers need to calm down. Others need to energize. Most are simply trying to find a state of readiness appropriate for the moment. When I walked the track before competition, stretched, completed my shakeout, and settled into the blocks, I wasn't just preparing my muscles. I was communicating familiarity and safety to my nervous system. I was reminding my body:

"We've done this before."

The body does way more than execute performance. It is where the mind and heart converge. When anxiety rises and thoughts race, breathing changes, muscles tighten, and heart rate increases. Likewise, when we feel grounded, connected, and confident, those experiences are reflected physically. This is why effective performance routines often incorporate embodied practices. Breathwork, movement, posture, mindfulness, and recovery practices all influence the nervous system's readiness for performance.

The mind provides focus.

The heart provides purpose.

The body provides the means through which both are expressed.

The Real Purpose of a Routine

Looking back, I don't think the most important part of my pre-race routine was the visualization, the warm-up, the prayer, or even the cue word that echoed in my head as the gun went off. The most important thing was what those practices helped me build: Trust.

Trust in my preparation. Trust in my abilities. Trust in my body. Trust in my values.

As a young athlete, I thought the power was in the routine itself. Now I see things differently.

The strongest performance routines are not about creating dependence on a set of behaviors. They are about creating alignment between the mind, heart, and body. They help us focus our attention, reconnect with what matters most, and prepare ourselves to respond effectively to uncertainty.

Because the goal was never to eliminate pressure but to become someone who could navigate it. And that is the true purpose of a performance routine. Not simply to help us perform (although that is a great perk). But to help us remember who we are, what matters most, and how we want to show up when the moment arrives. When the mind is clear, the heart is grounded, and the body is ready, we no longer walk into performance searching for confidence.

We walk in carrying trust.

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