Coaching and performance anxiety
Raise your hand if you get anxious doing anything in front of an audience.
I still remember the sheer terror I felt when I was 8 years old doing a book report in front of my class. I recall getting up from my desk and heading to the front of the room, and then walking back to my desk afterwards. What happened in between was pretty much a blur due to the whirling anxiety in my brain and my heart pounding in my chest.
I somehow managed to overcome this severe performance anxiety as I got older. I performed at piano recitals and competed in music festivals. I taught courses as a university professor and delivered educational presentations to audiences of hundreds of physicians. I did live radio interviews sharing my opinions about controversial news stories. I even overcame my terror as a public speaker dans la langue de Molière.
My performance anxiety came back with a vengeance when I started voice lessons.
At my first voice recital, I had that same feeling of dread I felt when I was 8 years old. I remember my heart racing as I listened to each student perform one by one before me. By the time it was my turn, I could barely speak when I introduced my song. Thank goodness the piece I had chosen repeated the same verse twice. I was pitchy and squeaky on the opening notes but miraculously calmed my nerves enough by the second verse to hit a few good high notes.
I was hugely embarrassed but more importantly disappointed in myself. I had spent hours working to prepare my piece. I also felt I had let my voice teacher down by doing such a terrible job.
So why is it that things don’t always go as well as we plan? What’s getting in the way of us doing our best?
As a coach, I find it helpful to ask my clients about what their inner voice is saying. What I discovered for myself is that my inner voice was a critic, and not a particularly kind one.
“You sang the wrong words in the second line.”
“That high G was totally flat.”
“You forgot to take a breath before that long phrase.”
The problem for most of us is that our inner voice reinforces a “judging” or “fixed” mindset.
Judging is often dichotomous: the performance was either good or bad, with little gray zone in between. And my inner voice was also applying these same labels of being good or bad to me as a person, not just to my performance. As a singer, I was both the performer and the instrument.
“What do you expect? You’re never going to get better because of your lack of natural talent.”
Now compare this to a “learning” or “growth” mindset. Instead of judging where the performance went wrong, we can offer ourselves different questions.
“How close did I come to what I set out to do?”
“What has improved since the last time?”
“What is my game plan for the next time?”
The inner voice is now less of a critic and more of a coach or cheerleader. Did you also notice that these questions help you focus on what went well, rather than just what went wrong?
By shifting to a growth mindset, I now see myself on a continuous journey with ups and downs but always moving forward. Even if I still get anxious, it is more enjoyable to perform now that I am giving myself permission to be less than perfect.
