King soon began to see that the same principle — that pressure privilege — applied to all kinds of situations and that her anxiety was sign of her motivation to succeed. ‘Great moments carry great weight — that is what pressure to perform is all about. And though it can be tough to face that kind of pressure, very few people get the chance to experience it.’ With that realisation, she saw that she should embrace rather than suppress feelings of stress — a mindset that allowed her to get through her first Grand Slam wins and the enormous media hype around the Battle of the Sexes match against Bobby Riggs in 1973. As she wrote in her memoir, ‘At first, I felt obligated to play Riggs, but I chose to embrace as a privilege the pressure that threatened to over’ whelm me. This changed my entire mindset and allowed me to deal with the situation more calmly. And as time went on, I began to see the match as something I got to do instead of something I had to do. The shy fifth-grader who feared that she would die from her nerves at public speaking became one of our greatest athletes and one of sports most prominent spokespeople.
Excerpt from: The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life by David Robson