Here is how Mental coaching beats performance Anxiety
Performance anxiety can be a massive barrier to your successful professional and personal life. Anxiety is all about the mind game – you perceive certain things are difficult to perform for you and you fear failure. This is where mental coaching can help you overcome all these obstacles and drastically improve your life in several ways.
What is performance anxiety?
Performance anxiety is a type of anxiety that we “feel” when we have to take care of a task that we think is beyond our ability. That is why, sometimes, it is also called anxiety in advance. The good news is that this feeling comes from your mind, and if you can coach your mind in the right direction, you will overcome these doubts in no time.
This type of anxiety commonly appears before acts that you perform in front of the public (sometimes the causes may vary), and usually it occurs well in advance even before you face that situation.
On many occasions, the person suffering from this type of anxiety ends up avoiding the situation. It can definitely have serious consequences in your life (it could be a job interview, a date, or an exam).
One of the interesting things about performance anxiety is that in the end, what scares us the most is not what we have to do, but what we’ll feel while doing it and the consequences of our action (which in turn causes more anxiety).
In those situations, we long to keep control on ourselves to have no signs of nervousness, getting red, or having a trembling voice. Well, you got the idea.
Here are some ways in which mental coaching can help overcome performance anxiety.
Tips to overcome performance anxiety with mental coaching
Performance anxiety is not necessarily bad.
After all, it is a natural reaction and a defense mechanism of the body. It alerts you that you are going to do something complicated that you’re not used to do. Therefore, the best thing you can do is accept that anxiety as something necessary and start working from that point onward. Following are the key points that mental coaching helps you with to overcome performance anxiety:
Accept anxiety:
The first thing you have to do is accept your anxiety. You are facing something that is beyond business as usual for you and obviously not a piece of cake. So, accept that your body reacts in that way and don’t give much mind to it. It’s nothing strange or funny that happens to only you; it’s a normal reaction for almost everyone.
Do not notice the nervousness:
Nervousness and anxiety arise both at the time you are going to perform a certain activity. Sometimes it can dominate you even days and hours before. Don’t worry or fret over it. When it comes to nervousness, you should not pay attention to it.
Be prepared:
Nothing is better than having confidence in yourself and being prepared for what you’re going to do. So, regardless of the feats you’re going to perform, put your batteries on and prep up for the event well. Try the visualization technique as it helps you imagine the exact situation and know what to expect. This way the situation won’t be something entirely new for you as you would have already experienced it in your imagination. This can give you a lot of confidence in most cases. You will be sure that you will not fail, and consequently the anxiety will reduce a great deal.
Do not get obsessed with being calm:
This point is fundamental. Many people are more obsessed with being calm than doing what they have to do well; that’s where the danger arises. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about being honest. The best thing you can do is to not think more about being too calm and just be led by the self-fulfilling prophecy of leading your audience.
If you get nervous, accept it:
This is one of the most important points. It is possible to make mistakes because of anxiety. But is it something to be ashamed about? After all, we’re all human beings and the empathetic ones would definitely understand why you’re nervous. So here you have three options:
- Follow as if nothing happened,
- apologize and say you are nervous, or
- mount a drama to carry on with it.
Personally, the best option I think is the second one, but any of the first two is always better than the third.
Practice relaxation techniques:
Mental coaching trains you with various relaxation techniques that helps you fight any external influences that try to dominate you. You get the ability to control your mind the way you want it to work instead of following the commands of your mind. So, an interesting option is to practice some relaxation techniques that help you to be calmer when facing the situation.
As you can see, performance anxiety is something can affect anyone in a lot of situations, and learning how to control it would literally make you partially invincible. Whatever the situation is, the way to solve it is always the same if you learn how to do it.
Performance anxiety is something can affect anyone in a lot of situations, and learning how to control it would literally make you partially invincible.
Want to learn more about mental coaching?
Contact us at Cregg Coaching and see what our expert trainers and mentors have to say about it.