Confidence & Pressure

The Pacesetter Play: Your Plan to Handle Teammate Pressure

Rhema Adelaja · National Champion & 4x DUX · August 2026 · 6 min read

Feeling anxious comparing yourself to a top teammate? This direct plan helps you reframe their performance, manage teammate pressure in sport, and focus on your own progress.

You see them across the pitch. They make every drill look easy. Their form is perfect, their speed is effortless. And the voice in your head starts. It measures. It compares. It tells you that you are falling behind.

Suddenly, your own legs feel heavy. Your focus blurs. The drill you could do yesterday now feels impossible. This is teammate pressure. It doesn't come from them. It comes from inside you. And it can seriously damage your performance.

I remember a swimmer on my university team. She was a machine. Every length she swam in training was faster than my last. I spent an entire season watching her, trying to match her pace. My own times got worse. My anxiety went through the roof. I was so focused on her race that I forgot how to swim my own.

You are not alone in this feeling. Performance anxiety is common. Research shows a huge number of student-athletes feel it, with many believing it hindered their progress to a higher level. Comparison is a key cause. It steals your focus and replaces it with fear. But you can learn to control it. You need a plan. This is your plan.

Why Your Brain Compares (And How It Backfires)

Your brain is built to notice where you stand in a group. It is a survival instinct. In sport, this instinct can work against you. You see a high-performing teammate, and your brain flags them as the standard. The problem starts when that observation turns into a judgment on your own ability.

It creates a negative loop. First, you compare. Then, you judge yourself harshly. This creates a feeling of pressure or anxiety. That anxiety makes your body tense and your mind distracted. Your performance suffers. This poor performance then confirms the negative judgment, and the loop starts again, only stronger this time.

When you are stuck in this loop, your attention is in the wrong place. It is on their results, not your process. You stop thinking about your own body, your own technique, your own effort. You are a spectator in your own training session. We need to make you the main character again.

The Pacesetter Play: A Three-Step Mental Focus

The Pacesetter Play is a mental routine. You can use it in any training session to manage internal pressure. It breaks the cycle of comparison. It gives your mind a new job to do. It has three simple steps you can practise until they become automatic.

Step 1: Reframe the Pacesetter

Right now, you see your high-performing teammate as a rival. A threat. Someone who shows you what you are not. This is the first thing we need to change. You need to reframe them. They are not your competition in this moment. They are a source of information.

Think of them as a living textbook. They are demonstrating a high standard of skill. Your job is not to beat them. Your job is to learn from them. This is a simple but powerful shift in your thinking. It moves you from a fixed mindset, where you worry about your current ability, to a growth mindset, where you focus on what you can develop.

This starts with changing your internal self-talk. When you catch your mind comparing, actively replace the thought.

Instead of thinking, “I’ll never be that fast,” tell yourself, “What can I learn from their technique? Notice their arm movement. Notice their foot placement.”

This is not about pretending you are happy to be slower. It is about turning a moment of frustration into a moment of learning. You are taking back control of your thoughts.

Step 2: Anchor in the Present Moment

Comparison drags your mind away from the present. You start thinking about past failures or future worries. To perform well, you must be right here, right now. You need an anchor to pull your focus back to your own body and your own task.

This is a practical form of mindfulness. It is a tool for athletes. Studies confirm that mindfulness practices reduce anxiety and improve performance. When you feel your focus drift to your teammate, use a physical sensation to anchor yourself.

Choose one or two simple things to focus on. It could be:

Focus all your attention on that single sensation for just a few seconds. Feel the texture of the ground. Hear the sound of your breath. This simple action interrupts the spiral of negative thought. It brings your mind back into your body, where it needs to be to execute the next movement.

Step 3: Set Your Process Target

The final step is to give your mind a clear, controllable instruction. Comparing yourself to a teammate is an outcome goal. It is about winning or losing the drill. Outcome goals are often outside your complete control, which is why they create anxiety. You need to focus on process goals instead.

A process goal is a small, specific action that you can control completely. It is about your execution, not the final result. It is your personal measure of success for that drill, that rep, that moment.

Before training, decide on one or two process goals for the session. Make them incredibly specific.

These targets are about you. You can succeed at them no matter how well your teammate is performing. When your mind wants to compare, redirect it to your process target. Ask yourself, “Am I keeping my chest up?” This gives you a productive focus and a way to build real confidence from one small success to the next.

Your Job for the Next Session

This is not a theory. It is a practical tool. That swimmer on my team became my greatest teacher, but only after I stopped trying to beat her. I started focusing on my own process. My target became holding a specific breathing pattern for the first 25 metres of every length. My times began to improve. More importantly, the anxiety disappeared. I was in control of my own lane again.

You cannot control how fast your teammate runs or how much they lift. You can control your thoughts and your focus. That is where your power is.

So here is your next step. Before you walk into your next training session, take out your phone or a piece of paper. Write down one process goal for the day. Just one. That is your focus. That is your job. Let everyone else worry about their own performance. You just take care of yours.