Pressure is What You Feel When You're Not Prepared

Before the Oregon football game Thursday night, a reporter asked coach Chip Kelly if he felt any pressure. The coach shot back without hesitation "pressure is something you feel when you are not prepared." He said they were prepared. Oregon beat UCLA that night by a score of 60 to 13.

I think coach Kelly has a point. I don't think it's completely true, but it's largely true that if we feel nervous about a task we've got coming up, what would take the pressure off may be a few hours of preparation.

As I thought about the idea that preparation takes the pressure off, it motivated me to sit down and go through my major projects and do a little more preparing. I had a speech coming up, I had to go through the script and prepare a few scenes, I had a book tour lined up only  a couple weeks away. Now, for all those things, I'm feeling a bit more prepared than pressured.

But I'm not sure what to do about nerves.