Most people get anxious at the idea of performing in front of other people. Professional musicians and actors suffer too, but they find that with experience, the fright diminishes. So, habituation, getting used to it, helps to reduce the anxiety. That means to get over your stage fright, get on the stage more! Practice in any anxiety-inducing situation helps, so that you get used to feeling stressed and under pressure, whilst coping with your anxiety and surviving.
Because we see so many polished performances at events, on the telly etc, we get the idea that we have to achieve that standard of fluency and skill, dropping in a few witty jokes even, right from the outset. If we are inexperienced, we can only expect to give a fairly mundane performance. Practice makes perfect. This is a skill and it takes time to learn. Just realising this can help by allowing you to be average rather than feeling you have to amaze your audience. Perfectionist expectations just put on more pressure, so just accepting that you will be average, even a little dull, is helpful.
Certain kinds of thinking can make matters worse. Catastrophising is one of them. So we can focus on more helpful kinds of thoughts. Rather than, O no, I am going to make a complete fool of myself in front of all these people and my boss will fire me (catastrophic and not helpful) then maybe I shall try to speak slowly, I have prepared my notes. I can make a mistake and still succeed. (Realistic appraisal and kind self-talk).
Cognitive behavioural therapy has been shown to work for performance anxiety.
Because we see so many polished performances at events, on the telly etc, we get the idea that we have to achieve that standard of fluency and skill, dropping in a few witty jokes even, right from the outset. If we are inexperienced, we can only expect to give a fairly mundane performance. Practice makes perfect. This is a skill and it takes time to learn. Just realising this can help by allowing you to be average rather than feeling you have to amaze your audience. Perfectionist expectations just put on more pressure, so just accepting that you will be average, even a little dull, is helpful.
Certain kinds of thinking can make matters worse. Catastrophising is one of them. So we can focus on more helpful kinds of thoughts. Rather than, O no, I am going to make a complete fool of myself in front of all these people and my boss will fire me (catastrophic and not helpful) then maybe I shall try to speak slowly, I have prepared my notes. I can make a mistake and still succeed. (Realistic appraisal and kind self-talk).
Cognitive behavioural therapy has been shown to work for performance anxiety.
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