Crush Your Nerves: My 4 Key Strategies
This is Part 1 of my Crush Your Nerves series.
Prefer to watch? Here’s the video:
or scroll to keep reading….
Today I’m writing about something very near and dear to my heart:
Overcoming nervousness and anxiety.
Now, I’m a pretty accomplished actor – if I may say so myself – but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, I battled pretty constantly with nervousness and anxiety, so much so that it threatened to derail my dreams.
I’m particularly passionate about this topic because I’m a communication devotee – a communication junkie – and I believe being able to clearly and confidently express yourself is the key to everything. A lot of people don’t communicate because they’re scared, and not just scared to get onstage in front of an audience of hundreds - a lot of people are afraid to talk to their boss or their employees or even their spouse because they don’t feel confident speaking. Their fear of speaking holds them back from really expressing themselves fully.
Thankfully for me, my desire to be an actor always outweighed my fear and anxiety about speaking my lines in an audition, and that’s saying a lot because auditioning terrified me. However, after years of dedicated effort, experimentation, and study, I finally crushed my self-doubt and conquered my nerves, and found the confidence to overcome my anxiety. Now, I’m on a mission to help others do the same. My goal is to empower you to clearly and confidently speak your truth and deliver your thoughts, ideas, and messages to the world – clearly and confidently – whether it’s to an audience of thousands or one-on-one with an important person in your life.
To help you get started, I’ve created a four-part series in which I’m going to share strategies and techniques I used to overcome nervousness. These are the same methods I teach to my acting students and my non-acting clients – my executives, entrepreneurs, and business owner clients. My hope is that you, too, can unlock your full potential and communicate with confidence, no matter the situation.
Here’s what I’m going to cover:
Nerves and how real they are
A game-changing reframe for nervousness
How to use your nervousness to actually help you
How to outsmart your nerves and beat them at their own game
How to nurture your nerves and take care of yourself under pressure
I’ll also guide you through several grounding exercises to help you implement these strategies and take action.
First Let's Start with Some Eye-Opening Statistics
According to the American Institute of Mental Health, the amount of stress a person experiences when speaking publicly or auditioning is comparable to the amount of stress an astronaut experiences when being blasted into space.
The National Institute of Mental Health reports that anxiety levels before public speaking or auditions are similar to those of soldiers entering combat.
Mark Twain famously said, "There are two types of speakers: those who get nervous and those who are liars."
Public speaking, presenting, and auditioning are universally nerve-wracking experiences. The pressure to perform combined with the fear of being judged is intense. You’ve got the fear of failure coupled with the angst of being scrutinized, and to top it off, all of these situations require you to be vulnerable by putting yourself out there. Then you mix in the fear of rejection and the need for approval, and you’ve got a perfect storm of all things anxiety, making public speaking, presenting, and auditioning some of the most nerve-racking experiences you can endure.
So, how do we deal with this???
Step 1: R E F R A M E
YOU’RE NOT NERVOUS….
YOU’RE EXCITED!
One of the biggest (and best) shifts I made was reframing my nervousness as excitement. It was a game-changer for me. Finally, instead of viewing my racing heart and sweaty palms as negative signs of anxiety and panic, I began recognizing these physiological responses as signals that I was about to get to do something I loved—something I was excited to do.
Excitement and nervousness share almost identical physiological responses in the body. So, by reframing these feelings, I was able to channel that potent energy back into my performance, which gave me even more confidence, focus, and power.
I love sharing this technique with my clients because it’s transformative. Watching them transform their trepidation and fear into exhilaration and joy is truly inspiring. This shift helps them transform their nerves into a source of positive, carbonated energy. It gives them a sense of truth, enthusiasm, and authenticity that’s contagious. It makes us fall in love with them, hang on their every word, and want to hear more.
Now, let’s put this idea into practice!
Find a comfortable, quiet spot, and hit play on this meditative exercise and start reframing your nervousness as EXCITEMENT now.
Here is a meditative exercise to implement this concept. In this exercise, you’ll transform nervous energy into excitement. We’ll start by recalling a moment when you felt nervous, and then shift gears to revisit a time of genuine excitement. By practicing how to move between these feelings, you’ll begin to see how you can consciously reframe nervousness into a positive, energizing force. This technique, which we explore further in my Public Speaking Masterclass, can be a game-changer for managing nerves in high-pressure situations.
Whether you’re preparing for a presentation, an audition, or a tough conversation, learning how to reframe your nerves can help you take control. In the upcoming posts, I’ll dive deeper into these strategies and teach you how to turn your nervous energy into something powerful and productive.
Stay tuned!
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