"I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music." -J.S. Bach
How to Beat Stage Fright
(Adapted from Stage Fright, by Mick Berry, MFA)
• Abolish your musts. Identify your self-demands, then rip them up. Replace musts with preferences: not “I must do well, but, “I prefer to do well.” This goes hand in hand with developing anxiety tolerance. Not “I can’t stand feeling anxious,” but rather “I don’t like feeling anxious, but I can stand what I don’t like.” The first statement is self-destructive and unrealistic; the second is helpful and realistic.
• Uproot your awfulizing. Not “I must do well and it’ll be awful if I don’t,” but rather, “I prefer to do well, but it’s not the end of the world if I don’t.”
• Abandon self-rating. Self-valuing based on one’s performance or on the approval of others is a recipe for hopelessness, depression, and giving up.
• Develop unconditional self-acceptance rather that self-esteem. It’s more reasonable and effective to focus on self-acceptance than on self-esteem. We’re all fallible human beings who screw up fairly often. But we’re alive, and life can be quite enjoyable, even thrilling in peak moments. Further, even if rating yourself were rational—which it isn’t—a rating based on performance cannot equal the rating of your being, your totality. To put this in other words, your performance is one thing. You are another. It can be helpful to rate how well you do, but it’s not helpful to rate yourself. (God doesn’t view you like that anyway, and that’s what is ultimately important).