Turning Nervous Energy Into Confidence

Do you ever get nervous before teaching a class or giving a talk?

You feel your heart racing,

This little shaky energy,

And you just wish it would go away.

Number one,

That means you are human.

It means that you care.

And if you didn't feel nervous,

You might be a psychopath.

My name's Lou.

I'm a meditation teacher and coach,

And I've given hundreds of talks and classes from groups of one to hundreds in an auditorium.

And what I've learned is that the nervous energy is not something that we should push away,

That it is actually something to embrace,

That it is our path of growth.

And in this video,

I'm going to give you four mantras that help me turn nervous energy into grounded excitement.

Number one.

What I say to myself is,

This is a good thing.

Joseph Campbell said,

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasures you seek.

So every time you feel that fear,

That that is something to go towards because that is how we grow.

So when you're feeling those nerves,

Say,

This is a good thing.

I am growing.

And it's when you're not feeling nervous anymore,

That is a sign that your growth is plateauing or stagnant.

Number two,

I say to myself,

It's okay to make mistakes.

I used to overprepare for every presentation and talk,

Thinking that I needed to know every word.

If I made a mistake,

They were going to start throwing tomatoes at me.

They would know.

But no one has any idea what your presentation or talk is about.

And so getting out of your head that you have to get it perfect helps you to stay present.

Because what often ends up happening is when you're trying to not make mistakes,

You make one mistake,

You're self-conscious about it,

Your mind disassociating from what you're actually saying.

The nervousness gets a little bit more intense and you start going downhill fast.

And so just say to yourself before,

It's okay to make mistakes.

Mistakes are the way that I get better at my presentation.

They say a good presentation is not created.

It is earned.

It is earned through making a lot of mistakes and learning and improving as we go along.

Number three,

It's probably better than you think.

Say that to yourself as you're going through.

We are our own worst critics.

So many times I have given a class or a presentation and as we're going along,

I'm like,

Oh my gosh,

This is terrible.

They hate this.

No one's smiling.

They're not laughing when it's supposed to be funny.

And I'm just in my head.

And then afterwards,

Someone comes up to me and says,

Oh,

I love that.

You know,

That was really great.

Or someone else says something else.

And I realize that I am not the best judge.

Ever of whether it is good because I am holding myself to a much higher standard than anyone else is holding me to.

So when I'm going through the presentation and I feel that nervousness,

I'm wondering if it's good or not,

I just say to myself,

It's probably better than you think.

And again,

I'm back in my body.

I'm back flowing rather than in my head.

Number four,

Just have fun.

It's not that high of stakes.

It's okay if it goes to crap,

If it is the worst thing in the world.

I've had that experience before,

I promise you,

Where it all went to crap.

I had to leave the room.

I completely forgot what I was saying.

And I realized that if I just was having fun at that moment,

If I didn't think that my career was over,

It would be a totally different story.

I would have rebounded from that.

And so before every presentation,

Just again,

To make a lightness out of the nervousness,

I remind myself,

If I'm having fun,

They're having fun.

And you can have fun.

You can feel nervousness and have fun.

And that nervousness turns to excitement.

You start wanting to feel nervous again because you know that you're alive,

That you're leaning into your edge.

So I hope you found one of these helpful.

They're simple,

Practical.

Go ahead and use them for your next presentation.

Let me know which one stood out for you by leaving a comment.

Thanks so much,

And I look forward to connecting soon.