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.

As I shared in my last post, the key challenge if you struggle with anxiety, whether on the stage, in business or in life in general, is that your goal is most often to be liked by others rather than having the goal of liking yourself.

Real change, then, always begins with an awareness that the foundation of your anxiety and lack of risk-taking in life is low self-esteem.

I would like to share 3 powerful principles and steps that you can use to take the awareness that we talked about last week and apply it to learning to accept and love yourself.

1) Give Yourself Appropriate Praise

Praise yourself every time you accomplish something, no matter how small. If you are struggling with the fear of speaking in front of a group, no matter the size, and you say to yourself, “Well, all that I did this week was volunteer to lead the presentation at work, but then I felt panicky all week and almost pulled out of the meeting” instead tell yourself, “Great job! I made the attempt and am starting to go outside my comfort zone!”

Usually, any positive step gets discounted in our mind, it gets wiped out and none of it seems to matter or count. It is time to give yourself permission to feel good about any step, no matter how small, that you take to overcoming your fear.

We typically do not talk to our self in that kind of positive, forward looking way. So, no matter how small your victory is, it is crucial to get into the habit, and it is a habit, of praising yourself.

2) If you make a mistake or blow it, ask yourself, “What should I do next?”

When you do fall short of a goal that you have, or you make a mistake, which is inevitable, do not shame yourself but, rather, ask yourself, “What should I do next?”

When I was very young, I used to spill my glass of milk a lot. I don’t know why, but I would be at the kitchen table and accidentally knock the milk over. Now, I had a very caring and loving father, but he would give me this stern look as if I was this terrible person for spilling the milk and I would get very nervous.

As a result of feeling so anxious, did I stop spilling milk? No, I became the champion milk spiller!! It became part of how I saw myself, my identity. I saw myself as clumsy and anxious that I would not please him. It was as if whenever we went out to a restaurant I was subconsciously saying, “Oh excuse me dad, there’s a table over there with a glass of milk on it, I’ve got to go knock it over – that’s my job, that’s who I am.”

Instead of growing up and hearing from him, “That’s okay, let’s just clean it up and move on,” in my head I would beat myself up.

The key principle here is that when you blow it, when you make a mistake, instead of putting yourself down, give yourself a positive, helpful suggestion on what you can do differently next time. What can you do to create a different outcome next time? Be aware of the mental picture, or identity, that you have of yourself and commit to changing it in order to feel less shameful and be more kind to yourself.

Sometimes you need someone else to help you with making this kind of change. It can be a therapist, a coach, or a friend, someone that can say to you, “It’s okay, let’s just understand this.”

We so often put ourselves down automatically without even realizing it. It is not as though you sit around and say, “Hey, I think I’ll have a poor self-image today. I think I’ll be unhealthily dependent on people today. Let’s see who I can let control me.”

Become more aware of how you are talking to yourself and say, “Wait a minute, stop. Don’t. That’s not right to say to myself.” Refrain from calling yourself names or putting yourself down. It’s been said that life is hard enough and no one deserves to be humiliated, even by yourself! Become aware of what you tell yourself.