When Olympic figure skater Lilah Fear is waiting to be called onto the ice, there’s a good chance she won’t be relaxed. But nerves, and even pre-performance anxiety, she told me, should not be feared: “Of course I feel nerves before stepping on the ice. If I didn’t, something would be wrong.”
Fear isn’t alone. Nearly all the great performers I’ve had the privilege to speak with for my new book The Way of Excellence—from athletes to musicians to surgeons—have expressed similar sentiments.
Research shows elite performers feel the same jittery sensations and anxiety as everyone else; they just learn to take it along for the ride. In a study that followed both elite and non-elite athletes, researchers found that each group felt the same level of nerves before competing.
The difference? Elites interpreted their nerves as readiness—their nervous systems getting into gear. Non-elites interpreted the same sensations as fear.
Instead of thinking: “I feel off, something is wrong.”
Try thinking: “This is my nervous system rising to the occasion,” or “I am feeling this way because I care about what I’m doing,” or “Once I get started, my training will take over and I’ll be fine.”
Fighting Anxiety Just Makes it Worse
The worst way to make anxiety go away is by trying really hard to make anxiety go away. The best path forward is taking the anxiety along for the ride, stepping into the arena, and getting reps under your belt. The more you accept and face your nerves, the more they fade.
Simple, but not easy. It requires guts.
The acceptance of nerves—and even better, reframing them as traits like excitement, readiness, or a sign of caring—leads to better outcomes in everything from public speaking to athletic competition. Not because those feelings disappear, but because you stop seeing them as something to fix.
Research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology shows that instead of trying to calm yourself down, “reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement” is advantageous. When try to suppress those pre-event nerves, you are inherently telling yourself that something is wrong. Which only makes the situation worse.
Fortunately, according to the authors of the study, shifting into a headspace of “I am excited” changes your demeanor from what they call a threat mindset (stressed out and apprehensive) to an opportunity mindset (revved up and ready to go). “Compared to those who attempt to calm down,” the authors conclude, “individuals who reappraise their anxious arousal as excitement perform better.”
The sensations you feel prior to a big event are neutral—if you view them in a positive light, they are more likely to have a positive impact on your performance.
The superstar violinist Hilary Hahn loves performing, and she’s quite good at it, as evidenced by her two Grammys for Best Instrumental Soloist with an Orchestra. When I asked her what she feels prior to stepping on stage with a full orchestra at her back and thousands of fans filling the concert hall before her, she didn’t hesitate: “I am filled with adrenaline, and I am sharpened by it.”
Hahn isn’t alone. I’ve yet to meet a great performer who doesn’t experience nerves.
“Nerves are an essential part of the game,” the chess superstar Maxime Vachier-Lagrave told me. “If I am feeling too relaxed before a tournament, I cannot rise to the level of competition,. My nerves help me to focus and to fight.”
Change Your Approach to Nerves
If you struggle with performance anxiety, try this:
Normalize the nerves.
Reframe them as caring and readiness.
Get to the starting line (or microphone, boardroom, stage, etc.)
Let your training take over.
Give yourself grace for being a human and feeling human things.
Anxiety isn’t always the enemy. Sometimes, it simply means that what you are attempting is hard, and that you care. Nothing is wrong with that.
Caring is fuel.
Learning to ride the waves is one of the most powerful skills you can develop—and like any other skill, it only gets better with practice.
This post is excerpted from my new book, The Way of Excellence. If you enjoyed this post, I promise you’ll love the book. Get your copy now: Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes and Noble
Anxiety is excitement without breath :)