Have we ever thought why few of us, work much effectively when pressurized, and few mess up under pressure? No… then read on.
How it works?
For explaining this I would like to quote a simple example from “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” book written by Robin Sharma, which I happened to read it recently.
Julian Mantle (A lawyer turned monk) asks John (An old friend cum employee of Julian when he was lawyer) to do pushups till he feels he can not continue further. John does 30 push ups and gives up. Later Julian asks him to do 10 more, and he does it.
Later Julian explains him that at 30th pushup you gave up as your mind asked you to give up. But you did 10 more push ups when I asked you to do it. It’s when you utilized your resources and potential to perform the additional 10 pushups.
He beautifully explains him, that we never utilize our resources completely unless we are forced to 
, as our mind controls our potential and we do not control our mind effectively.
Those who mess up under pressure or tension don’t have much confidence on themselves nor trust their own potential to perform a task.
My Incident
I was working on flash coding for making an application. There were few errors in it. I was trying to fix them since few days (spending 15-20 minutes a day), but could not figure out where it was going wrong. Later my Boss asked me to do anything and get that application ready by end of the day. Due to this, somehow I concentrated more on the code and fixed the error. Loll! Thanks to my boss :d.
This is a very fresh incident, but I have felt this many times before too.
That’s a strange thing, that many a times we don’t realize our own potential.
Hope this post helps in realising your potential like I did.
Cheers 