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3 Tactics to Corral Nervousness and ACE Your Next Performance

Justin — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 11:00:50 +0000

If you are trying to be great at something, pursue excellence and fulfill your potential, chances are you’ve experienced the feeling of being nervous. Leading up to your big sales pitch, before briefing the board on last quarter’s numbers, before the first game of the season, preparing to give that speech – many of us have been there. The interesting thing about nervousness is that we only experience it when we want to be awesome.

No college student who believed getting a D stood for diploma is experiencing nervousness. When your team is down by 20 points with 5 seconds on the clock, you aren’t nervous; it’s all over except the hand shakes. There’s nothing on the line. No one in your company just showing up for a paycheck is experiencing nervousness today. No one aiming for mediocre ever experiences nervousness. Nervousness occurs because we aim to meet high expectations, not because we don’t have what it takes.

And so we face racing hearts, clammy hands, and droplets of sweat permeating on our foreheads. Are our bodies trying to sabotage our performances in the biggest moments of our weeks, our years, our lives? How can we be awesome with all of this going on inside? It seems impossible.

I first got a different view of nervousness in my junior year of high school. I was warming up for a big, pressure-filled cross-country race. It was our home course against major rivals. You know what I’m saying. For most of the day, I had been calm, cool and collected. As our team warmed up and I focused on the race ahead, here it came. Nervousness reared its ugly head. A couple trips to the bathroom later (it’s important to stay hydrated for these events) and my stomach was still full of butterflies. As we lined up on the starting line for our final minutes of strides, trying not to psych ourselves out, my silver haired, yoda-like coach approached. He asked how I was feeling. I told him about the butterflies being worse by the minute. What came out of his mouth next shocked me. He said, “Good. Justin, if you didn’t have butterflies today, then I wouldn’t even let you run the race. Those butterflies tell me you care about the outcome.” What I learned from that moment is that nervousness is actually a good thing and that I needed to find a way to use it to my advantage. FYI, that was one of my top performances.

Since then, I’ve come to understand the science of nervousness and how to handle it. Here are 3 tactics to corral nervousness and ACE your next performance!

Acknowledge The Benefits
The symptoms that we associate with feeling nervous are tied to our body’s Fight-or-Flight response. It is a survival mechanism designed to help us rise to the occasion in life and death situations. While there isn’t likely a lion chasing us around the boardroom, our bodies react to our perception of a threatening situation. If our thoughts are of danger, fear, worry and a desire to show what we’re made of, then our bodies prepare for battle. An internal chain reaction supplies us with a burst of energy, elevates our heart rates to get more blood to major muscle groups, opens up our lungs to take in more oxygen in every breath and heightens our senses to process more information in our environment. How amazing is that? We are created to perform under pressure and face the biggest moments. Our bodies know how to prepare to be awesome! We simply need to acknowledge what is happening, accept it and let the performance happen.

Channel The Energy
Often times we mis-interpret the symptoms of an activated nervous system (described above). We may think, “I’m not ready for this,” “I’m going to fail,” “I don’t have what it takes.” Because our thoughts drive our reactions, they often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do fail, botch the speech, choke, blow the game. But what if we channeled that energy by changing counterproductive thoughts to productive thoughts? What if we directed it toward our preparation, rehearsal, or research? What if we channeled it into making an energetic and engaging pitch to the investors, or to hustle up and down the court? Rather than thoughts that hold you back, allow your thoughts to focus on the possibilities, what good can come from the situation, and what there is to gain. I find this turns nervous energy into productive energy, the kind that I need to win.

Embrace The Excitement
According to a recent article in The Atlantic, 85% of people believed the key to defeating nervousness (termed anxiety in the article) was to calm down. That might not be that bad if only those 85% knew HOW to calm down. But recent research out of Harvard suggests a different approach. Researcher, Alison Wood Brooks, found that embracing the symptoms of nervousness and interpreting them as excitement proved to increase performance. Compared to experimental subjects who were instructed to counter their nervous feelings with “I am calm,” those who told themselves, “I’m excited” performed at a higher level in public speaking, math and singing. I have found this extremely helpful for myself and for my clients too. Rather than fighting the inevitable response from our body, we can embrace it as excitement about the opportunities that await as we perform with excellence.

As you pursue your potential and strive for excellence in your day-to-day life, you will encounter nervousness, fear and anxiety. Will it sabotage your performance or will it fuel your excellence? The choice is yours. It is entirely up to you how you choose to respond. Will you choose to ACE it? Give it a try. Acknowledge the benefits, channel the energy and embrace the excitement to seize the opportunities and succeed in your high pressure moments.

Question: What else have you found helps corral your nerves to perform under pressure? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

Links:

Article: Study: Fight Performance Anxiety by Getting Excited by Julie Beck
Article: Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety As Excitement by Alison Wood Brooks

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Retrain Your Resistance: 3 Steps to More Productive Thinking

Justin — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 12:00:49 +0000

Listen. Do you hear that? Do you hear that voice inside your head holding you back, telling you why you will fail and why you don’t have what it takes? Steven Pressfield calls this Resistance. You aren’t in this alone. As it turns out, we all hear voices. Most of the time our inner thoughts simmer in and out of our awareness throughout the day like a spotty radio station.

Our thoughts often narrate our experience of the life going on around us through the lens we use to see the world. Sometimes our thoughts critique, offer encouragement or provide color commentary for the events we encounter moment-to-moment. Astonishingly, some research puts the number of thoughts we have in a given day in the tens of thousands. Impressive. Exhausting. However, for most people, 70% of our thoughts are counterproductive or neutral. Wow! No wonder we struggle to stay focused, move forward and achieve our goals.

To be honest, sometimes my thoughts can get the better of me. This especially happens when I try to do something that matters. Maybe this happens to you too. My thoughts shoot down my dreams, fill my head with doubts or worries or snip quick jabs about how I’m not good enough. But, I’ve learned that I can fight back; throw some punches back at those counterproductive thoughts.

I’ve learned that we can retrain our brain and be more productive in our thinking. Here are 3 steps you can take toward retraining your brain.

Step #1: Identify the counterproductive thought

Imagine for a moment that you’re about to give a speech (rated a higher fear than death by many) to a small group of professionals who are intelligent and, luckily, kind. In that moment, ask yourself, “What’s going through my mind right now?” You may be thinking…”They won’t care about what I have to say,” “I’m going to forget my key points,” or “What will I do for lunch today?”. Notice how each impacts your (a) emotions, (b) physiology and (c) ability to focus on your objective. None of these examples are setting you up for success. If you don’t like the impact of your thoughts, they are likely counterproductive. Learning to identify the counterproductive thought is step #1.

Step #2: Interrupt the the counterproductive thought

Shout the word “STOP!” Then, imagine a large, bright red STOP sign in front of you, 10 feet away and flying right at you at top speed. Imagine reaching out to stop that sign with your hand in front of you. This interrupts the counterproductive thought and puts you in an offensive position. Lastly, take a slow, deep breath down into your gut and let it out slowly. This activates an opposite physiological response than the stress of a counterproductive thought, your parasympathetic nervous system. Rather than working you up into a stressed out mess, this recalibrates your mind and body, allowing you to be more adaptive in your thinking, putting you back in control.

Step #3: Insert a more productive thought

This is where we get back on track, build our confidence and prepare to succeed. Recall your goal, objective, hard work and preparation, or even past successes. In the example of giving a speech, you may insert a more productive thought such as, “Relax. I know what I’m talking about because I’ve studied the information and reviewed it with my team.” Or, for the sake of argument, let’s say that you know you didn’t prepare as much as you would have liked. You could insert, “Sure I could have prepared more, but the reality is I can focus on what I know and it’s okay if I can’t answer every question. I’ll find the answer afterwards.”

Zig Zigler said, “The most influential person you talk to all day is yourself.” What kind of influence are you? What’s more is that by repeating these 3 I’s (Identify, Interrupt, Insert) each time you notice a counterproductive thought, you’ll be retraining your brain to think more productively. Soon your thoughts will be your best positive influence rather than your own worst enemy. When it’s go time, the big question is, are your thoughts working for you or against you? If they’re working for you, encouraging, focusing, goal-directed thoughts, great! Keep ’em coming! But, if not, give these 3 I’s a try and retrain your inner Resistance.

Question: In what areas of your life do counterproductive thoughts hold you back? What strategies do you use to fight back? I invite you to leave a comment below.

Links: (posts, books, links, etc.)

Book: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Post: Read more about when Resistance rears its head in 11 Situations That Elicit Resistance by Michael Hyatt

The post Retrain Your Resistance: 3 Steps to More Productive Thinking first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

3 Myths That May Be Suffocating Your Potential

Justin — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 17:59:25 +0000

As a kid, I was never the smartest in the class, the most athletic, the most…anything, really. I went with the flow, but if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t truly happy. Something just didn’t feel right. I wanted to be great and achieve more. Looking back I now realize what was going on. I was being misled and sabotaged by my own thinking. I felt unsatisfied, disappointed and unfulfilled.

In Little League, I had a coach named Rick. I really liked Rick; he was positive, encouraging and helped me understand the game of baseball. He let me use my knack for speed to steal bases and make diving catches. He also told me I had potential. I initially was flattered by the expression – he saw something more in me.

Over the years, this became a theme in my life. Teachers, coaches, my parents and later, even college professors said the same, that I had potential. I came to realize that what they really meant was that I had abilities I wasn’t demonstrating.

Essentially, I was holding back. I wasn’t bringing my A-game. I was settling for being average. As it turns out, this was because of myths I believed about myself and about the world around me.

As you review 3 crippling myths that held me back from pursuing my full potential, ask yourself, “Do I believe this myth too?”

The myth of dreams:

When I was a kid I dreamt of being a fire fighter, an astronaut or a famous musician. As I grew up, I learned about the real world, where you have to get a job, make a living and “put away childish things” as the saying goes. And so I did. I began to follow the paths that education laid out before me with no passion, excitement or plan in mind. The message was to do my job, to be a cog in society’s wheel and life would be fine. I got well into college before I realized this path wasn’t leading me much of anywhere, at least nowhere that brought any amount of excitement to Monday mornings. Perhaps it was time to dream again.

The myth of the lucky few:

Hearing about my unseen potential began to feel like a backhanded compliment. My brain began to translate the words into a core message, “I’m not good enough.” I wanted to be the star pitcher, the spelling bee champion, the best player on the tennis court. I began to believe that maybe it just wasn’t in the cards for me to be extraordinary. Maybe I was capped at ordinary and should just stop striving for the impossible. My genes didn’t seem to possess the top shelf kind of DNA I had hoped for. It was time to settle. The worst part was, I had no hope that my ordinary status would ever change. I was locked in. Being extraordinary was only possible for a lucky few. Perhaps that’s why I was feeling unsatisfied and disappointed.

The myth of average:

Don’t stand out. If you’re first, everyone is waiting for you to fail. If you’re last, you are guaranteed embarrassment. So, I began to do what Michael Hyatt calls “drift.” I began to act like the water flowing off the roof after a good rain. It follows the path of least resistance, flowing down the gutter, trickling across the driveway to the curb and to the culvert down the street. I began to figure out that it was easy to be average. I didn’t feel pressured to perform up to a high standard. I didn’t take risks, like AP classes or trying out for the varsity baseball team. “Why bother trying if I know I won’t be great at it,” I thought. Turns out there is a name for what was happening. Abraham Maslow called this the “psychopathology of the average.” I accepted my fate and made peace with being average. Perhaps I wasn’t seeing the world the way it really was.

In his book Linchpin, Seth Godin wrote, “Everyone has a little voice inside of their head that’s angry and afraid. That voice is the resistance–your lizard brain–and it wants you to be average (and safe).” My lizard brain was winning the battle in my mind by a landslide. Luckily, there was a shimmer of light. Deep down I knew I had to change what I was doing, what I was thinking. I discovered that pursuing my full potential wasn’t just for a lucky few.

The thing that made other people extraordinary wasn’t that they won the genetic lottery. The difference was in how they thought. I discovered that I, too, could escape average and that I could pursue my full potential. Through knowledge, skills and practice, I could unleash the potential that I had given up on. I decided to give up these crippling myths and start living with purpose, excitement and fulfillment.

Question: What myths (these or others) have held you back? Are still holding you back? How did you overcome them? Please leave a comment and join the conversation below.

Links:

Book: Linchpin: Are You Indispensible? by Seth Godin.

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