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Hiya! How ya doin'? Whatcha doin'? Well obviously, you're reading this post. While I have your attention, lets talking about whats holding you back. Actually, I'm gonna talk about what's holding ME back and through that hopefully inspire you to find what's holding YOU back. You like how I worked that out, huh? Me too :) Anyway, I suppose you could call this a follow up to my Go Get Your Life Back post a few days ago. Let's get on with it.
Confession: I have performance anxiety. I also have test anxiety. If I'm being really honest, I'll just say I have some fears! We all do, right? Yup, that's what I thought.
I play the piano. I practice all the time. I get up to perform though and IDK what takes hold of me. I recently played something for my performance class ( yes there is actually a performance class where all you do is perform, get critiqued and watch others perform!) that didn't go as planned. I worked on loosening up by practicing mentally and thought I would do great on my last performance. What really happened: I got on stage and could not remember the first notes of the piece to save my life! It all went out the window. I eventually worked my way through the end but I was so over myself.
For the most part I'm an introvert and as such, being a performer is not something that comes naturally for me. I realize as a musician though, there is just no getting around performing. I've been performing all my life and I've always been nervous but something happened a few years ago that really shook my confidence. I can't even put a finger on what it was but it was like I just got into this stuck and scared cycle and it continued until I stopped playing in public anywhere. Craziest thing. Now I'm trying to figure how to work past that, to push past that fear of failure and imperfection and just take the bull by the horns. It gets old being too scared to perform. Like, really, really old. It's time to stop robbing myself and the audience of the true pleasure that comes when someone is totally connected to what they are doing. I'm looking forward to getting to the place where I'm so connected and the fear is so far behind me that it's not even worth mentioning. I'm committed to moving past all the things that keep me from shining as brightly as I can. What about you? What's holding you back? What are you doing to change it? We can do this.
Go!
~M
3 comments:
ugh. how WELL i can relate. as an introvert and a musician, my situation is oh, so similar: i've been "working on" a solo album (are they still called "albums"?) for xxx years (i can't bring myself to actually write the number), and still, i'm having sooo many doubts. i've just abandoned the whole thing. my issue is constantly thinking, "who in the world besides my family will buy my project?" and that's just the first question. they get waaaay more technical after that...lol! your question was, "what are you doing to change it?" i'm currently in Ponder Mode...smh/lol pray, Church! :)
Lauri- DO NOT abandon the whole thing! The self doubt is the thing that dims our stars. Haven't you ever met people who were confidently wrong or for another example: confident but horrible singers? Heh. Yeah, they are lacking that self doubt. I don't know about you, but I'm going in search of a even a portion of the confidence they have! Let's not rob the world of our talents because of doubt. That is not a valid enough reason for any of us :-).
Do it!
~M
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