When-Anxiety-Hits-at-the-Worst-Time

Why we make mistakes or stumble during a performance – on the field, on the stage or in front of an audience. Here’s how to stop it happening, so you can make an impression for all the right reasons.

Transcript

  • We’ve all had times where we’ve practiced for days or hours to do something, and we know everything we need to know, or we have everything in us to do a brilliant performance because we’ve worked so hard preparing – and then we mess things up. Some people call it ‘choking’, but really, it’s anxiety. It’s happened to all of us, and if it’s happened to you, know that you aren’t alone and that these stories will be gold one day.
  • Understanding why this happens can help to minimise the changes of it happening again.
  • When your mind starts focusing on what could go wrong, your brain starts to organise your body to deal with the potential threat – and embarrassment, humiliation – all counts as a threat. It does this by surging your body with a neurochemical fuel to get you ready to fight the threat or flee from it. This neurochemical surge is designed to make you stronger, faster, more alert, more powerful – more able to deal with the threat. It’s meant to be a good thing, but if there isn’t a real threat then it can really trip you up.
  • When these neurochemicals are surging through you, one of the things that happens is the thinking part of your brain can actually get overwhelmed and it can shut down. This is an instinctive, automatic response designed to keep us safe. If there is an actual danger, your brain (specifically, the amygdala) doesn’t want you to take too much time thinking about the consequences or being too logical or rational. It just wants you to get safe, so it takes over down that thinking part (the pre-frontal cortex).
  • We know you’re not in danger if you, for example, go on stage, take to the field, sit the exam, but your brain doesn’t know that. The part of your brain that is responsible for the fight or flight response is the amygdala.  It’s very primitive and very instinctive. It’s a doer, not a thinker, so it will act first and it will think later.
  • To stop anxiety from getting in your way, it’s important to make sure that thinking part of your brain – the prefrontal cortex – doesn’t go offline. A powerful way to do this is to keep your focus on what you have to gain from the experience and how you want it to end up, rather than the things that could go wrong. 
  • The more you focus on the things that could go wrong, the more likely your brain will get anxious, and the more likely it will send thinking, planning part of your brain offline. This is when you’re more likely to stumble or make mistakes – and we’ve all done this before.
  • So, whenever your mind starts to wander to what could go wrong, bring it back to focusing on all of the things that could go right, and the great things that could come from your experience. 
  • Practice also strengthens the pre-frontal cortex so it can keep working hard for you. It’s important for strengthening your brain so it can do what you need it to do – which is to keep you strong and calm, and to stop anxiety causing trouble for you.

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If we want to meet their learning needs, we first have to meet their relational ones. If we want them to be open to learning, they first have to open to the adult they are learning from - and they won’t be open if they don’t feel seen, safe, and cared for. It’s not always easy, it’s just how it is.♥️
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We know there are too many kids struggling right now, including those from loving, responsive families and in loving, responsive schools. 

One of the places these struggles will show themselves is at school, even in the most loving responsive ones. Sometimes these struggles show themselves with a roar, sometimes with nothing at all.

Too many kids are feeling no sense at all that they matter. They don’t feel they are doing something that matters, and they don’t feel that they matter to others.

Too many of them will go weeks at school without hearing their name in a way that makes them feel seen, cared for, and valued.

Too many of them are showing up at school but are noticed more when they don’t, even if only by the unticked box beside their name.

For too many kids, we are asking them to show up when they don’t feel like they have anything to offer, or anything at all to show up for. Why wouldn’t they struggle?

This week I had the greatest privilege of speaking to a room of 300 school well-being staff about how to support all children, how to catch the ones who are struggling, and what we can do to buffer, protect and heal all young people at school.

If you are a parent of a young person who is struggling, I want you to know that schools are working hard to hold them, lovingly and safely.

I know there are also many parents who haven’t had this experience, and your children haven’t got what they need. I know that. I want you to know that change is happening. I want you to know what I see when I work with the wellbeing staff at these schools. They care. They really do. They are so invested in supporting your children, seeing the child behind the student and showing up big for all of them. The work is happening. There’s a lot to do, but it’s happening.

Yes we need more resources, and yes more people, and yes we’re asking more of our schools and teachers than ever, and yes the world is asking more of our kids than ever, but the work is happening.

Thank you to the Department of Education Queensland for working with me, and thank you to the wellbeing staff, teachers, and leadership who are giving everything they can to be there for our children. You matter.♥️

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