3 Steps To Overcome Performance Anxiety & The Fear Of Public Speaking

Are you challenged by performance anxiety? My three-step mind trick will help you shift it from fear to confidence. Hi, I’m Carol Tuttle. I am very experienced in, not only healing my own life, but helping, literally, millions of people heal and create lives they love. I’m a teacher, a healer, and the bestselling author of six books, including “Mastering Affluence : 6 Lessons to Create a Life You Love,” and that is a life-changing book. In fact, I’m gonna refer to a section of it in today’s video. Now, the first thing to understand about performance anxiety is it’s super common. In fact, fear of public speaking for decades has been one of the number one fears people have. And so any kind of performance…it might include…we think of performance as maybe a stage performance, or speaking in front of people. Let’s also throw in their athletic performances.

Maybe you’ve trained for something. I used to do a lot of marathons and triathlons and I’d get really anxious and nervous before the performance. Anything that you prepared for, that you’ve put a lot of time and attention and practice into prepping for, and now, the day and time of the event is right there and you have anxiety about it.

So, first of all, the first trick is, accept the fact that this is normal. It’s normal to be anxious about performing, whatever that performance is for you. It’s even very, very common for a parent to feel it in behalf of a child’s performance. Well, we’re gonna look at why do we get anxious? What’s setting us up? There’s actually three reasons. We get really nervous and anxious about performance, and good chance you’ve never even thought about it this way. I love understanding it from this point of view because it makes it accessible to change it.

It gives you an option to be able to work with that, because that’s one of the things that can be frustrating is feeling like you’re just stuck and the anxiety is there and you can’t work through it and you somehow have to just get through it and hope you do your best in spite of the anxiety. Well, these three mind tricks are going to really help you.

3 Reasons Why We Get Anxious

1. Fear of Not Doing Well

So the first reason we get anxious is, well, we really care about our performance. We want to do well. We’ve put a lot of time, energy, investment into doing our best. So, of course, we’re very, very mindful of being really strongly wanting to do well. We’re just like, “I care about this a lot. It means a lot to me. It’s important to me,” and we’re afraid we might fail, see? We want that so much that it actually stirs up the fear. “What if I don’t get that? What if I fail? This means so much to me and what if I blow it? What if all this time and effort I put into it really doesn’t make a difference?”

2. Fear of Rejection

The second reason we get anxious is, we want others to enjoy it. We want to have others have a supportive experience with it. We really want their validation. I’ve done a lot of online performing. I have a lot of content online, and I still will ask my daughter who I work very closely with in video production, I’ll still ask her, what did you think of that? How did I do? I’ll check in. I want that recognition. I want that validation. “You did a great job.” You want to hear that, and you’re anxious because what if you let people down, they don’t like it, and they negatively judge it or think, you know. something poorly of you and you feel rejection?

I think that’s the reason people fear public speaking because you’re putting yourself out there, you’re being your vulnerable self, and people could judge you then reject you. So it’s really the fear of rejection that’s the issue.

3. Fear of Coming Across As Nervous

And then the third reason we get anxious is, we want to feel confident so we can easily perform and our nerves and anxiety are interfering with that, which just adds to the anxiety, you know, a vicious cycle, where you’re like, “Oh really? I don’t want to feel nervous, but I am, and now that’s interfering with my confidence and I don’t know how to get rid of this.” So, notice these three desires actually create fears. We want them so much, we’re fearful we will not experience them. So it’s the fears actually that cause the anxiety. So what if rather than trying to prevent what you don’t want, which is those fears, you were able to create what you do want by really focusing on it?

Now, interesting in my book, “Mastering Affluence,” I have a lesson titled…lesson two is titled, How to Create an Affirmative Mind. That your mind thinks in the affirmative consistently. How to Create Mental Affluence. You can see it there. Even have a section on what I’m talking about today, Prevention versus Creation Thinking. Did you know most people try and get what they want by trying to prevent what they don’t want, which is kind of backward because wherever you focus your attention, you’ll create more of it? And so, as you’re trying to prevent the fears, you’re actually feeding the fears and you’re more likely to create what you fear. So you wanna notice them, it’s kinda like, yeah, but they’re there. What do I do?

How to Overcome These Fears

You observe them and you just don’t lock into them in your thoughts, you kind of challenge them with the affirmative. You present what you want then in your thinking process, you even speak it out loud. In fact, the day before your performance, go on a walk and make these statements out loud. Go on a creation walk. It’s very powerful to move your body while you’re making these statements. The three statements are, “I’m grateful for how well my performance goes.”

1. Write It Down

You don’t say, “I’m grateful. I hope it goes well.” You act as if it will go well. “I am grateful for how well my performance goes.” You write that down. You can put that on your mirror the week before your performance with a dry erase marker because those wipe right off the bathroom mirror and you can read them every morning, these three statements, they’re very powerful. “I’m grateful for how my performance goes.”

2. Activate Creation Thinking

The second one is, “I am grateful others enjoy and compliment me for how well I did.” “I’m grateful for how others enjoy and compliment me for what I did.” You’re opening it up to say, “You know? I’m gonna create that. I’m going to create people supporting me. I’m going to create people having a pleasant experience, and they’re gonna give me that positive feedback because I much rather experience that,” and you might say, “Well, Yeah, but what if they don’t?” I say, “Well, they’re more likely to when you believe that, and you’re going to then bring forth a performance that will create that.” See? You’re affecting it. You’re choosing what you want to experience.

3. Focus What You Want To Create

And the third one, “I’m grateful for how confident I feel and how easy it is to perform my best.” Okay? So rewind this. Pause the video. Write them down word for word. How are you gonna use these? Put them into practice. Remember, you’re trusting your intuition, focusing on what you want to create, rather than having to fear the issues you don’t want to create. Okay? Remember, creation thinking rather than prevention thinking.

These three statements put you in creating a successful performance in reducing and even eliminating the anxiety. Could you imagine being so calm that you’re like, “How? I feel great. I really am confident this is all going to go so well.”

I’m Carol Tuttle, subscribe to my channel here, like the video, if this helped you, and go to caroltuttle.com and take my Stuck Quiz, which leads you to a free Masterclass to help you. If you like this kind of stuff, I’ve got more for you at the Carol Tuttle Healing Center. I can help you heal, literally, lifelong issues, things that you’ve been dealing with for months, even decades, in a matter of weeks and months. I’ve learned the healing process. I’ve put it together in an online website called the Carol Tuttle Healing Center that has over 100 supportive healing videos and I have created healing plans. I guide you through daily practices, daily sessions, right online as if you were working directly with me to help change the struggle into affluence, check it out and caroltuttle.com. Thanks for watching everyone. I’ll see you at caroltuttle.com.

It’s time for you to shift out of what’s keeping you stuck.

In the Carol Tuttle Healing Center, I’ve created powerful single sessions and courses to help you heal anything that is keeping you in a place of lack, pain, and struggle.

You get access to all of them when you’re a member of the Healing Center. If you haven’t joined us yet, you can get your first two weeks free!

Start your (FREE) complimentary two weeks here!

Bless you,