Mastering Your Performance
How to Perform Well Under Pressure
You are about to step in front of 800 people and try to convince them that you know the best way to focus the mind. Possibly you are in a staff meeting and your boss has just called on you to explain why the company’s numbers are down. Maybe you have been cast in a fantastic film with a famous director and you are going to be paid thousands for one day of work. Perhaps you are standing at the first tee with your coworkers watching to see if you are any good at golf.
Your palms start to sweat, or get freezing cold. You start to wonder if they will think you are good enough, smart enough, or attractive enough. Now your stomach is doing flips and you are seriously wondering what would have tempted you to eat a burger and fries for lunch!
The next thing you know, your vision is a little funny and there is a pool of sweat collecting on your lower back and armpits. The audience seems eerily still and possibly judgmental. “Do they like me?” you doubt. And before you know it, the moment is over. You feel relieved that it is done, and a sinking feeling that it was not your best.
This type of fight or fight response is an event that many professionals experience while engaging in high performance activities. High performance is necessary whether you are making a presentation or participating in an athletic event. In fact, this Adrenaline and Cortisol boost is an essential survival response that was originally created to help keep you safe. The Mayo Clinic Staff explain, “When you encounter a perceived threat… your hypothalamus, a tiny region at your brain’s base, sets off an alarm system in your body.
Through a combination of nerve and hormonal signals, this system prompts your adrenal glands, located atop your kidneys, to release a surge of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol.” We have evolved in many ways, but our response to threats has remained the same.
Now, threats may not come in the form of a lion wanting to eat us, but in internal thoughts of wanting to be good enough or seen as smart or valuable. For high performance activities, this hormonal boost is actually a godsend! Harnessed correctly, this adrenaline and cortisol boost can give you energy, focus your brain, and make you astonished of your own capabilities! But why does it have to be so physically uncomfortable?
I have found that in my training of actors at Academy of Art University, the trick to utilizing this flood of hormones is practicing how to harness it. Once harnessed and redirected, all discomfort dissipates as you lose yourself in your activity. The technique that taught me how to harness this energy is The Alexander Technique. It has been taught to actors and the public at large since the early 1900s. Its focus has always been to teach the student how to pause the normal fight-or-flight response, and redirect their focus in a constructive way.
You will find teachers of this technique in almost every Acting Conservatory in the country. They are prevalent in music and dance schools, and now they are starting to help the public at large with public speaking. Why, you ask? Because it works.
Here are the stages to learning the technique:
First, you must learn your habitual responses to feeling in danger (even little dangers). Many people engage in physical habits like pulling their chin up, leaning back on their heels, or tensing the full length of their body.
Next, you must learn to notice this response, and pause it — in real time.
When you are able to pause your response, you can then redirect your thoughts. For a person who is engaging in a high performance activity such as a presentation, show, athletic event, or even a staff meeting, this means you learn how to have a relaxed body, alert mind, and you can focus on the objective at hand instead of your fears.
Of course, like any skill, you must put in the hours of practice in order to master the riding of the fight or flight response. You start by practicing it in your everyday life. You practice pausing yourself before you sit down in your old habitual way. You practice pausing when you want to brush your teeth. You especially practice pausing when you want to get something done, or get something right.
Combining B.J. Fogg’s recipe card in his book Tiny Habits with the Alexander Technique, one can create a recipe card for how to deal with Stage Fright.
When I start to feel: ________________________ (my stomach turn/sweaty palms/shaking legs etc..,) that is a prompt (an alarm bell) for me to loosen my body and focus OUT on my scene partner/or audience/or ball.
Zoom in on your objective.
For Actors: I want my scene partner to _________________________. (make it physical)
And then, I am going to imagine touching them with my energy in a very specific way.
For Public Speakers: I want my audience to _________________________. (make it physical like clap or smile or jump out of their seats applauding!)
And then, I am going to imagine touching them with my energy in a very specific way.
For Athletes: I want my ball to land in the center of the fairway.
And then, I am going to softly focus on the ball as my club does the work.
After you practice this new way of thinking and focusing: Celebrate it!!! This celebration creates a new habit-forming neural pathway in the brain that makes you change faster.
Everyone knows that change is hard. If you are suffering with paralyzing stage fright, or wishing that you had a plan with how to perform well under pressure, this technique is a practical training that will allow you to be your best self in any stressful situation.
