Olive Branch Music Studio

How to Give Yourself Stage Fright
(Adapted from Stage Fright, by Mick Berry, MFA)

Stage fright-inducing self messages have several common features:

• They almost always emanate from musts: “I must do well or I’m no good.” “The audience must like me, otherwise I’m a hopeless loser.” “I must not feel anxious; if I do feel anxious I won’t be able to stand it.”

• Musts are often coupled with awfulizing: “I must do well. It would be awful if I don’t. It would be terrible if the audience doesn’t like me. It would be horrible if I appear anxious.”

• Demanding acceptance by an audience. You tell yourself: “I must be liked by the audience. It will be awful if I’m not. If they don’t like me, it’ll prove I’m a total failure.” Notice that these thoughts make your self-worth dependent on the external factor of performance and/or acceptance, which greatly increases the pressure!

• Perfectionism rubs salt in the wounds: “I must do well or even outstandingly well. In fact, I must do as well as possible—perfectly. It’ll be awful if I don’t, and if I don’t perform perfectly, I’ll be a loser.” While setting high goals—even impossibly high goals can improve motivation, perfectionism involves setting impossibly high goals for yourself coupled with the demand that you reach them.

• Anxiety about anxiety is the cherry atop the sundae. It’s what often leads to full-blown panic attacks. Performers notice that they’re anxious or that they may become anxious, and then compound their anxiety by making themselves anxious about being anxious. They tell themselves that they must not be anxious; that they’re no good for being anxious, it’s awful if they’re anxious, and they can’t stand it. This last statement is an expression of Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT), the refusal to accept, and thus tolerate, frustrating or anxiety-laden experiences.