Fear and anxiety can feel like they come out of nowhere. In fact, it is hard to even understand what is going on. This ‘unknown’ aspect of fear makes us feel even more anxious!
Understanding what the foundations of anxiety are is a critical first step to overcoming our fears. The more that we are aware of the ‘unknowns’ the more we can stop filling in the “What ifs” with false, fear inducing information and then apply practical steps to think and do things differently.
I have found that the best way to understand how anxiety develops and how it interferes with effective performing is what is called the Stress Model of Public Speaking Anxiety.
Under stress, whether real or imagined, several things can affect your performance. I say real or imagined because either way your body reacts the same as if the reasons for the stress are real. Preparing and actually presenting or performing can create real pressure and physiological stress.
However, the imagined pressure, the imagined stress of worrying how you are going to do, what people are going to think of you, whether you might ‘blow’ the presentation or forget what to say, can affect your performance in an even more negative way.
The Stress Model is comprised of the effects of both how you think, the cognitive effect, as well as your body’s physical response to the stressful situation. This week, let’s take a quick look at the Cognitive Effects of Anxiety.
The cognitive, or mental, side of anxiety includes the self-doubts that you begin to have, the self-criticism and the negative self-talk where you talk to yourself in a judgmental and critical way.
You might begin to have a loss of focus because you’re getting stressed out or are feeling so anxious. You question if you are prepared enough and wonder if you are going to look and do okay. “What if they see that I am nervous?” “What if I cannot concentrate and stay on track with what I am performing or presenting?”
This kind of self-questioning and negative thoughts are a part of the cognitive side of public speaking anxiety.
The first step to slow down our brain and its focus on feeling afraid is to become aware of the many “What If’s…” that flood our thinking.
Without such an awareness, we cannot replace these thoughts with more focused and positive ones that are NOT based upon imaginary fears (See my past post on not believing everything you think).
As a result of this awareness and replacing negative thinking with thoughts based on what is actually true, then we can turn our attention to getting our physical self under control. We will look at the physical part of our ‘brain on fear’ in my next Post.