The Anxiety of Performing

By Eric Maisel, PhD

Performance — which includes the act of coming to the blank page or the blank canvas, as well as standing up in front of an audience — is a classic anxiety producer. It is so potent an anxiety producer because it consists of a great many different fears: the fear of being seen as flawed, the fear of criticism, the fear of disappointing people, the fear of being in power, the fear of embarrassment and humiliation, the fear of imperfection, the fear of loss of control, and even more dramatic fears like the fear of loss of love and approval and the fear of annihilation. Performance anxiety is made up of such a long list of fears that it is no wonder so many people dread performing.

Mild performance anxiety is well-known to each of us. At such times we might experience butterflies in the stomach, the need to urinate, or a sense of disorientation. We are likely to react with more anxiety before important-seeming or difficult-feeling events, perhaps moving from butterflies to a feeling that approaches nausea or from slight disorientation to a feeling of dissociation. Each anxious person will have her own package of physical symptoms and distressing thoughts. As Stephanie Judy explained in Making Music for the Joy of It, “It’s as if some Bad Fairy visits each [person] on concert day and bestows the most aggravating symptoms possible: a trembling arm to the strings, a dry mouth to singers, clammy hands to pianists, scant wind to the winds, and a foundering memory to us all.”

Psychological symptoms include feelings of confusion, disorientation, powerlessness, and loneliness. Some performers report briefly going deaf or blind. Additional psychological symptoms include the desire to escape or to hide, feelings of impending doom or death, or feelings of unreality. Opera singer Rosa Ponselle explained, “I actually prayed that a car would run me over so that I wouldn’t have to die onstage — a prayer I was to repeat before every performance for the next twenty years.” The soprano Ann Moffo recalled, “I’ve never started a performance without thinking, ‘It’s only the first act — I’ll never live to see the final curtain.’” John Bonham, drummer for Led Zeppelin, admitted, “I’ve got terrible bad nerves all the time. Everybody in the band is the same and each of us has some little thing they do before we go on, like pacing about or lighting a cigarette.”

The better a job you do of detaching from outcomes, getting a grip on your negative thoughts, and approaching life philosophically, the more likely it will be that you will be able to perform — in front of the blank canvas, in an interview situation, when networking, and in all the myriad situations in which a creative person performs — without experiencing anxiety. But no matter how mature or evolved you become, some amount of anxiety is likely to remain. In part this must be the case because our performances do matter to us, we do want to excel and represent ourselves well, and we have indeed made large investments of time, energy, and identity. Some anxiety will probably beset you, especially in those last few minutes and seconds before the performance commences, when performance anxiety is typically at its worst. Since anxiety is coming, make sure to practice your anxiety-management techniques and have a few proven techniques at the ready.

Next: Mastering Creative Anxiety Interview »

About the Author | More by Eric Maisel
Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is America’s foremost creativity coach and is widely known as the creativity expert. His most recent book is Mastering Creative Anxiety. This article is based on or excerpted from the book Mastering Creative Anxiety © 2011 by Eric Maisel. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA.

6/1/11