This is another essential technique in calming performance anxiety. You can center yourself by breathing deeply and concentrating on your breath while releasing all muscle tension. Imagine all the energy in your body moving into one point, the belly button. Once it’s all there, visualize releasing it. Using this technique before an important event will help you regain focus and kick anxiety to the curb.

Centering yourself

The rush of fear and anxiety we feel before a big presentation or interview is caused by adrenaline being dumped into our system. Originally quite helpful when confronted by a dangerous animal, in modern days we are stuck with the racing heart, sweaty palms, and frozen brain of the “fight or flight” response. How we speak to ourselves in the moment can make a difference.

Leverage biology

"To really make the most of the final moments before you perform, reducing anxiety isn’t enough. You also want to build positive emotions, such as confidence, self-efficacy, and power."

As a leader, you can help your teams achieve better results by introducing them to pre-performance routines.<ul><li>Research shows that getting together to perform seemingly-silly ritual actions such as handclaps, foot stomps, and huddle-style “Let’s go!” before embarking on a task can improve a team’s performance.</li><li> Is there a ritual you can invent to accompany your customers’ experience? Think of Walmart greeters or the actions a good salesperson takes when they prepare your dressing room with the clothes you’ve selected. These enhance the experience, build loyalty, and boost sales.</li></ul>

Pre-performance routines

"In helping humans perform, psychology is the software, but biology is the hardware."

When it comes to performance, competition and rivalries are a great thing. Studies show that competition dramatically enhances performance.The feeling we get when we are racing against others and someone is right on our tail drives us to do better, to prove ourselves. Cyclists do better when competing rather than beating the clock, and the same goes for other sports as well. Furthermore, fighting against a rival, or someone you know, rather than a stranger, boosts your abilities even more.The motivating effects of competition help not only in sports but in the business world as well.

Competition will improve your performance

Before an important event:<ul><li>Remind them why it’s important.</li><li>Tell them why you know they can do it.</li><li>Have them pause and think about what they have accomplished together.</li><li>Exhort them to go and do it.</li><li>Just don’t tell them to “calm down.” That’s not realistic and that emotion is too different from their agitation.</li><li>And while it seems helpful to describe what might go wrong and why the world will keep spinning if it does, now is not the time to introduce negative thoughts to their consciousness.</li></ul>

Tell your team what they are being asked to do

For example, one study compared the performances of people who said, “I’m so excited” vs. those who said “I’m so nervous” and those who said nothing before going on stage. The people who said they were excited, and thus reappraised anxiety to excitement, performed the best.Why does this help more than not saying anything at all? Because transitioning from anxiety to calm is very difficult, as the two emotions are very different. Transitioning from worried to excited, however, does not take much effort at all.

Deal with performance anxiety by reappraising it 

<ul><li>Try one of these: have your team, colleagues, or worker-bees journal about their past successes before attempting today’s challenge. </li><li>Frame reminders of past work on the walls. Take and share a photo of the team flush from a past success before they climb the next (metaphoric) mountain. </li></ul>In experiment after experiment psychologists documented enhanced performance when workers were exposed to reminders of positive performance like these.

Priming

Regardless of what you choose to do before your performance, however, there is one thing that should always happen: consistency.Studies back up the effectiveness of athletes’ routines before a game, for example. Athletes are aware of this and do what they can to prepare.

Rituals can improve your performance

Closing the sale. Asking for a raise. Nailing the big presentation. Of the 2,000 hours you work every year, your success or failure is determined in the couple of dozen crucial hours when you need to bring your absolute best. Will you? The last few minutes before a major challenge can be terrifying. Ever wished you knew how to make sure you ace the make-or-break test, audition, or interview? We often feel the most powerless just before we’re expected to act powerful. As you’ll learn in this life-changing book, practice might make perfect, but perfection is useless if you can’t summon it when it counts. Pulling off a great speech or the pivotal at bat also requires the right kind of mental preparation. In Psyched Up, journalist Daniel McGinn dives into the latest psychological research and interviews athletes, soldiers, entertainers, and others who, despite years of practice and enviable track records, will ultimately be judged on their ability to delivera solid performance when it’s their turn to shine. For instance, he reveals... • How Jerry Seinfeld’s jacket and Stephen Colbert’s pen help them get laughs. • What General Stanley McChrystal said to Special Forces before they entered the battlefield. • Why the New England Patriots hired the DJ from the Red Sox to help them win. Among other counterintuitive insights, McGinn reveals why trying to calm your backstage jitters can be worse for your performance than channeling it into excitement; how meaningless rituals can do more to prepare you in the final moments than last-minute rehearsal; and how a prescription from your doctor could help you unleash your best skills. Whether you’re a sportsperson or a salesperson, an actor or an entrepreneur, one bad hour can throw away months of hard work. There’s so much conflicting popular advice that we often end up doing the wrong things. McGinn separates the facts from the old wives’ tales and shares new, research driven strategies for activating your talent, optimizing your emotions, and getting psyched up to take the spotlight.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

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Books

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Closing the sale. Asking for a raise. Nailing the big presentation. Of the 2,000 hours you work every year, your success or failure is determined in the couple of dozen crucial hours when you need to bring your absolute best. Will you? The last few minutes before a major challenge can be terrifying. Ever wished you knew how to make sure you ace the make-or-break test, audition, or interview? We often feel the most powerless just before we’re expected to act powerful. As you’ll learn in this life-changing book, practice might make perfect, but perfection is useless if you can’t summon it when it counts. Pulling off a great speech or the pivotal at bat also requires the right kind of mental preparation. In Psyched Up, journalist Daniel McGinn dives into the latest psychological research and interviews athletes, soldiers, entertainers, and others who, despite years of practice and enviable track records, will ultimately be judged on their ability to delivera solid performance when it’s their turn to shine. For instance, he reveals... • How Jerry Seinfeld’s jacket and Stephen Colbert’s pen help them get laughs. • What General Stanley McChrystal said to Special Forces before they entered the battlefield. • Why the New England Patriots hired the DJ from the Red Sox to help them win. Among other counterintuitive insights, McGinn reveals why trying to calm your backstage jitters can be worse for your performance than channeling it into excitement; how meaningless rituals can do more to prepare you in the final moments than last-minute rehearsal; and how a prescription from your doctor could help you unleash your best skills. Whether you’re a sportsperson or a salesperson, an actor or an entrepreneur, one bad hour can throw away months of hard work. There’s so much conflicting popular advice that we often end up doing the wrong things. McGinn separates the facts from the old wives’ tales and shares new, research driven strategies for activating your talent, optimizing your emotions, and getting psyched up to take the spotlight.

DANIEL MCGINN

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