One of the Most Underrated Life Skills: Performing Well When You Don't Feel Your Best

On getting great work out of your not-so-great days

Recently, a surgeon I coach got called into an emergency case at 2 AM.

The goal was straightforward: save as much of someone’s leg as possible.

He was tired.
His mind was noisy.
He felt off.

He took all that with him into the operating room—and nailed the case anyways.

One of the most underrated skills in life is performing well even when you don’t feel your best.

Something I see over and over in the current culture is people thinking they need to resolve or “fix” a feeling before they can act. You shouldn’t suppress or ignore your emotions. If you can do something to feel better, then do it. But the truth is you can feel like crap and still perform well. If anything, it’s often the act of getting started that shifts how you feel.

It’s easy to do great work when everything is clicking. But excellence means being able to deliver even when it’s not.

It’s saying, “Okay, this might be harder than usual, but I can manage.”

And then you manage.

The Trap of Perfectionism

You could be a surgeon who didn’t get enough sleep, a student with a headache before a big exam, or an athlete who couldn’t get their usual pre-event meal. Those conditions aren’t ideal, but what’s worse is catastrophizing. What’s worse is telling yourself you can’t because everything isn’t just right.

Put differently: too often we spiral because we feel off, but the problem isn’t always the feeling. The problem is freaking out about the feeling.

You can feel tired, stressed, unsure, and still deliver. You can put the not-so-great feelings or conditions in the passenger seat, take them along for the ride, and show up anyways.

So much of the performance space is dominated by messages of optimizing everything. There are three-hour podcasts full of tools to help you feel great. But sometimes those tools don’t work. Or the situation you find yourself in is unchangeable. Or your mental state is stubborn, and the more you try to resist or change it, the more it persists.

Here’s what optimization culture gets completely wrong: clinging to perfection and trying to control everything perpetuates anxiety about the inevitable uncertainties of life. But your best performance—not to mention your biggest life—comes from facing those uncertainties.

If you require everything to go a certain way then you make yourself fragile, because when things don't go that certain way, you freak out. Do what you can to set yourself up for success—nail your habits, routines, and systems—but you’ve also got to be robust and durable enough to show up and to give what you've got under any circumstances.

The golfer JJ Spaun was up at 3 AM with a vomiting child. The next day, he won the US Open.

The greats aren’t great because they always have perfect conditions to do meaningful work. They are great because they show up and give it their best shot even when they don’t.

Building Self-Efficacy

The ability to remain calm amid challenges is a core element of what psychologists call self-efficacy: an evidence-based belief that you are capable of showing up, working through challenges, and excelling in uncertain or highly charged circumstances.

Decades of research show that individuals who score high in self-efficacy are better able to work through moments when they feel lost or stuck, be it in the operating room, on the playing field, or in the boardroom.

If you are insecure about your process and abilities, then you’re liable to catastrophize when the path forward is unclear or when things feel off. But if you are secure about your process and abilities, if you have evidence to lean on, then not much can faze you. The best way to gain self-efficacy, the research shows, is through experience.

It follows that one of the best things you can do for your confidence is feel off and still perform well. It frees you from the need to have perfect conditions to give it a go. You provide yourself with the evidence that you are resilient, durable, robust and can get the job done.

The next time you are faced with suboptimal conditions, remind yourself that you don’t need to feel great to perform well. If you truly can’t get the job done—you are sick, in way over your head, etc.—then yes, of course, the right thing to do is bow out. But otherwise, don’t add to the stress by trying to control everything or create the perfect conditions when that’s not possible. Instead, reframe it as a chance to build self-efficacy. Subvert the freakout. Show up. Do what you need to do as best you can.

Think: Okay, this might be harder than usual, but I can manage.

And then manage.

These reps are every bit as important as the ones where everything is clicking. Perhaps even more so.