Are Nerves Really Bad?
It’s easy to think that feeling nervous is a bad thing. And that this is what causes mistakes.
But nerves aren’t inherently unhelpful. In fact, many of the physical symptoms of nervousness—the chemicals released in your body to prepare you for action—are actually designed to help you perform better. The real problem is that we’re not used to playing when our body is in this heightened state, so we handle it poorly. It’s not the nerves themselves that cause us to struggle; it’s our lack of experience managing them.
Let’s consider an analogy:
If someone asked you to do a fast lap on a racetrack, which car would you choose: a state-of-the-art Formula 1 car or the car you currently drive?
I’m betting you’d get much better results in your own car—even though the Formula 1 car is clearly capable of so much more.
Why?
Because you’ve never driven anything that powerful before. You’d probably be unable to handle its speed and would spin off the track. And that’s before we even consider how unfamiliar the controls would be—you wouldn’t know where the brakes were, how to change gears, or even how to start the engine.
It’s the same when we perform under pressure. Our bodies, flooded with adrenaline and other performance-enhancing chemicals, have been “upgraded” to a Formula 1 equivalent. But if we’ve never practised performing in this state, it feels completely alien — we’re like the novice driver who’s never driven a powerful car before. So, instead of taking advantage of that upgrade, we’d be better off with the slower, less powerful version of ourselves that we’re used to.
The solution is simple: Get regular practice playing in that heightened state — with all those “pressure” chemicals whizzing around your bloodstream. Then, over time, this will start to feel normal. You’ll learn to control your upgraded Formula 1 body, and that’s when the magic happens: not only will you stop making so many mistakes, but you’ll also develop the ability to play better in performance than you do in practice.
This isn’t mere theory. Here’s how Bryony (one of my Unlock Your Performance students) described her experience:
“I’m much more confident on stage and I know how to deal with my nerves. Even better than that, I can now pull out far better performances under pressure than I would in my practice room. Performance has gone from being something scary to something exciting!”
The next lesson should be in your inbox by now (if not, then give it a couple of minutes). It shows you a method for creating pressure in your practice so that you can start getting familiar with this state.
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