Performance anxiety: how to overcome it and reach your potential

What are the worst enemies we all have to deal with? Undoubtedly, the invisible ones, those that arise in our inner world and feed on our fears. Among these, we must certainly name performance anxiety.

Most likely, hearing this name immediately made you think of sexual intercourse, but believing that only sexual performance anxiety exists is wrong, as it is an emotion that we can indeed experience on many other occasions. There is, for example, academic performance anxiety, but also anxiety that arises from our professional life or that paralyzes us when we have to interact with others.

But what are the symptoms of anxiety and what lies behind this paralyzing feeling? Without a doubt, the fear of disappointing others and the fear of not being good enough for the situation, but not only. It is a much more complex emotion than one might think, and it is good to learn to understand it deeply in order to overcome it and achieve all our goals.

What is performance anxiety: causes and manifestations

The first date with someone you really like, speaking in front of an audience, going on stage for the first time, defending your thesis – these are all occasions where it's easy to experience performance anxiety. In short, it's an emotion that arises during an important event, where we know perfectly well that others are observing us and usually also have the power to evaluate us or pass judgment.

Therefore, the cause must be sought in the fear of not being good enough for the situation, of receiving negative judgments, of disappointing all those we love or who have believed in us. But where does this fear come from? Where does it have its roots? In most cases, this fear stems from our demand to always be perfect. Some will say it's character, but often it's our family history that makes us perfectionists and, consequently, more prone to anxiety. It's possible that parents and other relatives educated us in extreme perfectionism and, over the years, made us feel inadequate when we failed to achieve set goals, which were often their goals, not ours.

The physical manifestations can vary from person to person, but in most cases, they include shortness of breath and accelerated heart rate, tremors, muscle tension, and excessive sweating. In addition, performance anxiety creates a real sense of panic; the mind is not clear, and negative thoughts can appear, making it even more difficult to reason about the situation we are experiencing. When these symptoms appear, it's easy to feel paralyzed. We are no longer able to act. The stronger the performance anxiety we feel, the greater the chances of truly failing. It's a kind of vicious cycle that we must try to break at all costs.

Immediate management techniques for performance anxiety

When we experience performance anxiety, we can manage it immediately with some simple but effective techniques that allow us to reduce its intensity, thereby regaining control of the situation and, consequently, of ourselves.

Deep breathing

It may seem trivial, but breathing slowly and deeply genuinely helps reduce the intensity of the performance anxiety we are experiencing.

Breathe deeply and slowly, then hold your breath for about four seconds. At this point, exhale slowly. Repeat this exercise about ten times, trying to focus your attention on your breath and your body. This will allow you to relax and clear your mind, but above all, to regain control over yourself.

Progressive muscle relaxation

As soon as you feel performance anxiety coming on, get into a comfortable position, close your eyes, and focus only on your muscles. Starting from your feet and moving up to your head, contract one muscle group at a time and then release.

In this way, you will be able to eliminate tension, not only at a muscular level but also at a mental level. Just like with breathing, in this case too, the mind empties, and it becomes possible to regain control of the situation.

Stretching

Not everyone loves progressive muscle relaxation, but in reality, even simple stretching can achieve the exact same result. The advice is always to try to work on different muscle groups, however, in order to relieve tension in every part of the body.

Positive visualization

This is a technique we can use in combination with deep breathing to achieve a more effective result, and it consists of visualizing an image capable of calming us down, of making us feel serene.

There are two different types of positive visualization we can choose to follow. The first involves visualizing a relaxing landscape, such as a beach or a verdant meadow, or a memory, perhaps from childhood. The second involves visualizing ourselves facing the anxiety-inducing situation with positivity and achieving the desired success.

Long-term strategies to build self-confidence

Deep breathing, muscle relaxation, positive visualization – these techniques help us to counter anxiety when it appears. But is there a way to prevent the onset of anxiety? Absolutely.

As we initially observed, anxiety stems from our fear of not being good enough for the situation and of disappointing others. Precisely for this reason, what we can do is to increase our self-esteem. If we manage to have greater self-confidence, we will be able to face every important situation in our lives without difficulty, and without anxiety taking over.

We can, of course, choose to undertake a psychological path that helps us understand the causes and root of the problem, but there is much we can do independently.

Celebrate small successes

We often think that only a great success deserves to be celebrated. However, focusing our attention only on great successes can fuel fear and consequently performance anxiety. Instead, we must learn to divide the path that leads us to the final goal into many small steps and we must celebrate every step achieved, no matter how small. In this way, we become aware that we can do it and our self-esteem can therefore grow.

Practice kindness

Have you ever looked at your face reflected in the mirror and told yourself that you can't do it, that you're not good enough for the situation? If we are not kind to ourselves, we undermine our self-esteem.

Instead, we need to learn to behave with extreme kindness. So, every morning, look at yourself in the mirror, straight in the eyes, and give yourself a kind phrase, a compliment. This way, you will be able to increase your self-confidence.

Practice gratitude

This is also an exercise that allows you to feel more confidence in your abilities and pride as you look at the life you are creating for yourself. It's simple.

Every evening before going to sleep, write down at least three things you are grateful for from the day that has just passed. Remember that these don't necessarily have to be immense achievements; the important thing is that it's something that made you feel good.

Meditation

Meditating for ten minutes a day, or practicing yoga or tai chi, slowly walking in nature, listening to the sounds of nature, can be a great help. These and the other activities we have mentioned allow us to clear our minds and focus on ourselves, thus becoming more aware of our potential.

How to transform performance anxiety into positive motivation

You perceive performance anxiety as an obstacle to achieving your goals, right? In reality, this anxiety, if managed and channeled correctly, can become a valuable resource, a kind of propeller that pushes us to face every difficulty that life has in store for us.

Performance anxiety is usually accompanied by a real rush of adrenaline that we can use as energy to improve our performance. Moreover, if well managed, anxiety allows us to become more confident, and therefore more aware. Precisely for this reason, we can start to view difficulties as opportunities for personal growth. Changing our point of view independently is not simple; the help of a psychologist or psychotherapist is therefore advisable. However, the techniques we have described are an important first step towards this change in perspective, without forgetting that we can also take food supplements.

What do supplements have to do with anxiety? If this question came to mind, it's because you think that there are only vitamin and mineral supplements to take when diet alone is not enough to provide our body with what it needs to stay healthy. However, there are also supplements based on adaptogenic plants that are designed to help us combat stress and anxiety and to promote our mental well-being and relaxation. Adaptogenic plants, as their name suggests, help our body adapt to the stressful situations we commonly experience daily and respond better to these situations.

Fill up on adaptogenic plants with our natural MOOD supplement based on Ashwagandha and Rhodiola Rosea, also enriched with vitamin B6. It is a true daily support against stress, ideal for restoring mental well-being and training our body to sustain even the most difficult situations.