What To Do When You Are Nervous

What if being nervous did not have to stop you?

You could get on the stage, speak on the webinar, post the idea, or have the conversation while the feeling was still there.

Many people who speak publicly get nervous. When I asked speakers at Life Coach Live about it, most said yes. They were used to it, could handle it, and did it anyway.

The goal is not necessarily to become a person who never feels nervous. It is to become a person who knows what to do when nervousness shows up.

Resisting the feeling can make it harder

At Life Coach Live, a woman came up from the audience to be coached on stage.

She described her heart beating quickly and the nervousness she could feel in her body.

I talked with her about what happens when we resist that experience.

You try to get rid of it. You pretend it is not there. You think something is wrong with you for feeling it.

You may tighten your breathing and brace against the quickening in your body. Now you are fighting an experience you are already having.

My first suggestion is to allow it instead.

Make space for the sensation. Breathe into it. Notice it without treating it as something that must be removed before you can continue.

Understand the danger your brain is imagining

When you stand in front of a group, your primitive brain can interpret that position as being separate from the group.

You are alone on the stage. Everyone else is together in the audience.

That separation can seem dangerous to the part of your brain concerned with survival.

But speaking on a stage is not the same as being left without resources or threatened by an animal.

You can help your brain understand the difference.

Think about someone jumping out from behind a wall to scare you. You feel a moment of terror, then realize what happened.

You recognize that you are safe and may laugh. Your interpretation of the situation changes.

When you speak to an audience, you can remind yourself why they are there. They have come to hear what you have to say. They want something from your teaching.

You are not necessarily separate from them in the way your brain is imagining.

Observe the emotion

There is a difference between being completely caught in a feeling and noticing yourself having it.

When people came onto the stage and acknowledged that they were nervous, I noticed that the acknowledgment gave them a moment of observation.

They could step back and see the experience.

You do not have to announce nervousness to every audience. Whether you want to say it out loud depends on the situation.

But you can notice it for yourself.

You can recognize that this is nervousness. You can create space for the trembling instead of reacting to it.

Observing gives you a breath within the experience. It lets you become the person noticing the emotion rather than only the person inside it.

Bring your attention back to the people you serve

It is easy to get caught up in how you feel, what you look like, and what other people might think about you.

That focus can make you more nervous.

If you are a coach, teacher, or speaker, remember why you are there. You have something to give the people in front of you.

They are listening because they hope you can help them.

They do not need you to have no nervousness. They need the information, insight, or help you came to offer.

Ask what they need from you. What can you give them? How can you help make their lives better?

Those questions direct your attention toward serving instead of monitoring every sensation in your body.

Someone at the event kept talking about doing it sweaty. I loved that idea. You can keep going even while you feel the physical experience of nervousness.

Your contribution matters beyond your comfort

I believe every person has something extraordinary to create and contribute.

One of the tragedies I see is how much of that contribution stays hidden because we are caught in fear and avoidance.

We want to accommodate the part of our brain that tells us not to show up. We buffer instead of offering what we have.

I want us to learn to use our ability to think, create, and imagine beyond that response.

Your success is not only for you. It is also the example you create and the value you offer other people.

That is one reason to practice allowing nervousness rather than making your whole life smaller to avoid it.

Let yourself risk an emotional failure

I think we should seek opportunities where we could fail.

You might make a mistake on stage. You might forget what you wanted to say. You might feel embarrassed.

Those possibilities can make you want to avoid the opportunity entirely.

But experiencing and processing the emotion is part of developing yourself.

You can show your brain that an imperfect presentation or post did not mean the danger it imagined. You can do it again.

Each time you practice, you have another opportunity to learn that you can have a feeling and keep showing up.

If you avoid everything that could create negative emotion, you also miss the chance to develop the skill of feeling it.

Confidence includes being willing to feel

I think learning to experience emotion is one of the most important skills for personal confidence.

When you know you can feel a negative emotion, you can put yourself out there more.

You can offer the idea, make the post, teach the webinar, and speak on the stage.

That does not mean you will stop being human. Life will still be 50:50. Solving one problem does not remove every future problem.

But you can embrace the negative part of your experience instead of trying to arrange life so it never appears.

We benefit when more people share their ideas and what they have to offer.

Decide whether the feeling is worth the contribution

Ask yourself what the worst part of being nervous is for you.

Then ask whether that experience is worth the best part of what you could offer.

If it is, you can choose opportunities that bring nervousness with them.

Maybe you have a big event coming up. Maybe it is a date or a confronting conversation. Notice what your brain is telling you about the situation.

You can acknowledge the feeling, observe it, and make room for it. If you are there to serve, return your attention to the people you can help.

Do not wait for the nervousness to disappear before you live the life you want.

You can be nervous and keep moving forward.