Recently, I gave a keynote speech about stress and stress management for a large group of nurses in my organization. The night before the speech, I had a hard time falling asleep.
On the morning of the speech, I felt a bit restless: my heart rate was up, breathing was a bit shallow, and my stomach felt a little off.
Shortly before it was my turn to speak, I stood talking with a small group of people.
“Are you nervous?” one of them asked me.
At another time in my life, I may have answered "yes.” But, I know better now.
I was not nervous. I was excited, and my body was getting me ready to speak.
Being nervous and being excited create the same sensations inside your body because they are both started by the sympathetic nervous system- the “stress” response.
Which feeling you feel has to do with the story you tell yourself about what your body is doing. In other words, do you label the sensations as good or bad?
As I discussed in a recent podcast, our stress response is not the enemy. It is there to help us get through our lives. True, it can be activated inappropriately (especially in those with a history of trauma), and, when activated chronically, it can lead to poor health outcomes. Therapy can be incredibly helpful in both of these cases.
When activated appropriately, the stress response is what gets us ready for a challenge when it arises. Evolutionarily, this is what allowed us to fight or run away from predators. In today’s world, it’s what lets us run marathons, navigate emergency situations, and perform our best in a variety of settings.
When I was younger, I had terrible performance anxiety. Prior to piano recitals or public speaking, I felt nearly paralyzed by the tension in my own body. Often, I made mistakes, forgot parts of the pieces I was playing, or couldn’t remember the experience of speaking because I was so nervous.
I judged myself for these feelings and for the less-than-stellar performances. As you might have guessed, this only made things worse.
And then things clicked into place one day while I was out walking during the beginning of the pandemic. I was listening to this Radical Candor podcast when the host and her guest, an improv expert at Second City in Chicago, began talking about this topic.
“It’s not like the Tina Feys and the Stephen Colberts and the Steve Carrels weren’t nervous before going [into auditions], but they found a practice by which to turn their stress into positive stress to be a peak performer. I was talking to my friend Alison Wood Brooks at Harvard one time about the fact that I was out doing public speaking when my book came out and that I got nervous like everyone does and she goes, “I got a trick for you. Before you go speaking, don’t say out loud you’re nervous. Say out loud, I’m excited.” -Kelly Leonard, author of “Yes, And”
I have been doing this ever since, and it’s the #1 thing that has improved my performance.
I still feel the same feelings in my body, but my mindset has changed. I don’t push the feelings away. Rather, I welcome them with a cheesy little practice that goes something like, “thank you, body, for getting me ready. We can do hard things, and we’ll do great at this today.”
If you would like to add another layer of effective cheesiness to your routine, try this: a Rebecca Welton power pose in the mirror (see the link for the full effect.
Make yourself big. Feel the excitement. And get out there and do the damn thing.
You’re not nervous. You’re excited.