Randy Lubow's Performance Mastery Newsletter
Welcome to the first edition of my newsletter, <$firstname$>. In this month's edition, I'm going to talk about just what stagefright is.
What Is Stagefright?
People say to me, "I really struggle getting myself on stage, because my stage fright is so bad". Or "Can you help me overcome my fear of public speaking, it's out of control" Or "I have a really bad problem with performance anxiety", Or "I 'm suffering with social phobia," or "I'm extremely shy, I feel uncomfortable when I'm in a room full of people." Or "I really have this phobia about speaking up for myself. Can you help me?" Actually every one of these people are really struggling with the same problem, and that's performance anxiety.
"Actually every one of these people are really struggling with the same problem, and that's performance anxiety."
I decided to go through the dictionary out of my own curiosity and look up a few definitions of the terms above like fear, phobia, anxiety, shyness, and performance. Take a look at what I found.
- Fear
- ...a reason for dread or apprehension from real or imagined circumstances
- Phobia
- ...a persistent abnormal and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid it, despite the awareness and reassurance that it is not dangerous or harmful
- Performance
- ...something performed, an accomplishment, the act of performing a work or role before others.
- Anxiety
- ...a state of apprehension, uncertainty, and fear resulting from fantasized threatening events or situations often impairing physical and psychological functioning.
- Shyness
- ...self-conscious or awkward in the presence of others, distrustful, wary
Do any of these definitions sound familiar? How many of them resemble how you feel before or during performing or addressing other people? It's interesting how they all interrelate. I use the term stage fright, because most people think of it in this term but, we're really technically talking about performance anxiety which as you can see is a bit of all the them put together.
"How did I get performance anxiety? Why me? It's really uncomfortable to feel so out of control."
Usually a negative experience expressing yourself in front of others somewhere in your past triggered an emotional response that established fear and panic as a subconscious method of attempting to block you from doing it again. So that each time after that first experience, whenever you have to perform, present or self-express in front of others, or become the center of attention, those old feelings immediately reappear (it's called a conditioned response). Put another way, you've attached the act of self-expressing with severe negative emotional reactions and they're operating on auto pilot together and will continue to operate together until you break that old negative pattern and replace it with a new positive pattern.
I want you to imagine this idea. What if I could actually help you overcome your performance anxiety in 24 hours or less! I know, it sounds hard to believe. But what if I could? Would you be interested in knowing more? Check out my programs or just register for my next workshop. It'll be in New York, on ____________.
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