Motivation and anxiety

[xela]

One of my high school English teachers had at one point in her life been an assistant director on Broadway. She told her students, in drama, speech, and English, two things about stage fright and performance anxiety. One, that you need a certain level of anxiety to perform well, and two, to reframe it as excitement. (This was before people were talking about reframing, so she described it differently. She did talk about roller coasters, as I recall. People seek out a certain level of fear and call it thrilling. )

Interesting. In my other life as a musician, I've also been doing this for decades, and teaching it to others. I had no idea it was backed up by any research, it just seemed like common sense. You can't stop the physiological reactions, but you can use them to your advantage instead of fearing them.

[Knotwilg]

One of my high school English teachers had at one point in her life been an assistant director on Broadway. She told her students, in drama, speech, and English, two things about stage fright and performance anxiety. One, that you need a certain level of anxiety to perform well, and two, to reframe it as excitement. (This was before people were talking about reframing, so she described it differently. She did talk about roller coasters, as I recall. People seek out a certain level of fear and call it thrilling. )

Interesting. In my other life as a musician, I've also been doing this for decades, and teaching it to others. I had no idea it was backed up by any research, it just seemed like common sense. You can't stop the physiological reactions, but you can use them to your advantage instead of fearing them.

Same here: whether playing a table tennis match, or performing music on stage, or professionally speaking for a large audience, whenever I felt the anxiety, I learnt to think "Good! I feel this because I want to do well". To be fair, those times I didn't feel it, because I was super comfortable, I probably did even better.