Do you feel anxious and nervous before an important conversation,
playing a sport,
making a sale . . .
or any time when feeling pressure?
No one “rises to the occasion” under pressure. No one does better than they do in practice. This is what research from institutions like Harvard and Stanford say. Sadly, pressure reduces work performance. If feeling pressure can make us do worse, sometimes it might lead us to what we call failure.
Just calm down!
Too often we tell ourselves to calm down. Those around us are telling us to calm down.
But that puts us in an antagonistic relationship with what is going on in our bodies. Under pressure, the body is activated physically, which you might define as nervousness or anxiety.
But when we reframe what is happening under pressure, it can lessen the effect on our performance.
There is a three-step process I recommend to becoming more effective and enjoy yourself when feeling what you might call nervousness and anxiety.
Maximize the body feeling
Instead of trying to oppose the feeling of anxiety and attempting to calm yourself, you can go with this physical feeling and use it to your advantage.
By making a suggestion to yourself to get excited when you are feeling nervous or anxious, you are defining it as something desirable rather than something to get rid of.
When getting excited, you produce more body adrenaline. That causes your blood vessels to expand so more oxygen gets delivered to your tissues. That allows you think more clearly, act more decisively, and be more effective.
How I get excited under pressure
When it is time for me to hula on a stage in front of an audience, I learned to get excited. I no longer think of it as being nervous. I am excited to dance with the group and to express the movements and words of the song and dance. I am excited to take myself to the beautiful place that song speaks of and bring the audience with me.
I notice this excitement sharpens my focus on the dance and the hula dancers surrounding me and increases my enjoyment of being there and dancing.
Isn’t that what life is all about, anyway?
Step Two
There is a second step in reducing the feeling of anxiety in a situation in which you feel pressure.
Step two is to compare what you are about to do with something you have already done. How are they the same or similar?
When learning to dance hula, I realized that learning the movements were like when I learned Tai Chi. Both are precise, relaxed movements acting out something with meaning.
I realized that the process of learning the hula body movements was also like when I learned martial arts in general. In learning martial arts, I learned how to learn that particular language of the body. The same with hula.
Singing the words of the song in Hawaiian while dancing was also somewhat like learning the Japanese numbers and counting like when I did Karate.
I find that all this analogous previous experience reduces the pressure of learning and performing for me. It makes dancing, even in front of an audience very enjoyable.
Third Step
The third step has to do with focus.
When I narrow my focus to the factors within my control, I can ignore everything that I cannot control. Then I can brainstorm how to do those things under my control well.
Take for example dancing a particular hula song. My list of what I have control over includes daily practice at home, studying and memorizing the words, practice with my classmates to feel how it flows in a group, and eating well so that my brain is sharp and there is no pain in my body.
The list of things over which I have no control includes how my brain and body is functioning that particular moment. It includes how the hula sisters around me are dancing, the room conditions, the quality and volume of the music, and so on.
I don’t worry about those things because I have little to no control.
The Anxiety Banishing Script
Now that I have carefully gone through the three steps to reduce anxiety, I have a plan.
Right before a performance on a stage dancing hula, I fill in the following template:
I’m excited to __________ (dance “Hilo Hula” onstage at the Aloha Festival.)
Because it is just like when I _______ (performed my kata in front of judges at that tournament.)
And I have a lot that I am in control of.
For instance, ____________, _______________, ________________. (Being hydrated and gone to pee before, having eaten to balance my blood sugar, having practiced all week and this morning, feeling good about being at the Aloha Festival, . . .)
Your Turn
If there is something you are anxious or nervous about, apply these steps and notice what happens.
