Grab a sheet of paper and pen, we are gonna break down some points, analyse and hopefully make you a stage fright free performer!
most of the time I have the fear to make bad transitions
How bad is your anxiety / fear to perform?
It’s rarely but when I have the extreme fright state, I start to loose things, forget things and hallucinating malfunctions of the equipment. But most of the time I have the fear to make bad transitions.
So I want you to go back to your worst performance.
What did you feel or experienced exactly?
Why did you feel that way?
Search for the possible reasons that made you anxious.
what exactly are you afraid of?
Who are you that you don’t want anyone to see?
That means, what exactly are you afraid of?
What’s the least thing you want to happen during your set?
I always felt like everyone expected from me to be very good and especially 6 years ago people were more curious to see a woman behind the decks and payed more attention on what she’s doing, that’s why I felt a lot of pressure. I was scared to not be able to keep up with my friends who dj too.
what ever “mistake” could happen - it wouldn’t kill you :)
The least thing that I think all of us wouldn’t like to happen is to be booed out. Happened to Calvin Harris and he is doing just fine, I mean it is very disrespectful to do this but he didn’t die from it and so wouldn’t you and I. Keep this one in mind that what ever “mistake” could happen - it wouldn’t kill you :)
What task or situation makes you feel similar uncomfortable like on stage?
And now when we know how we feel and what we feel, we can try to act on our fears.
I’ve noticed that I experience a similar feeling when I record a mix at home and I find it a very good exercise to record myself frequently so I am able to confront this feeling and learn how to deal with it.
But! If you feel extremely uncomfortable and get in panic when you just think about confrontation you should be careful. If you are able to get professional help, do that. If not, let yourself time and act in little steps but try to be aware what your limits are.
Let’s go over to the positive sight and remember your best performance.
What was different?
How was your day, what did you do on that day?
What were your thoughts?
What did you do to be able to let go?
Once of the performances that I felt very confident about was when I did my first random set. I had a folder of tracks and just randomly played (in the past, I was always preparing the whole set). The venue was small and it was not the first time for me to play there. I did my small ritual by going through tracks on my laptop just before my set to put me in the mood. I was happy and thankful to see all the people who came to our event and I was thankful that I got the chance to make this people happy, to make them feel good!
Imagine how you want your future performance to be
Mindset
Imagination is a very powerful tool. Imagine how you want your future performance to be, how do you want to feel and how do you want the people around you to feel or behave?
What I find really helpful to repeat before every performance: “I am grateful for the time that I got to perform. I can’t rewind the time and relive this moment again. That’s why I will enjoy it now!”
Practice
Most of the time when you do a task frequently you are getting comfortable with the time doing it. When I have gigs on a regular basis I get less and less nervous or anxious about it. However, if you find yourself having the stage fright even if you do it frequently please reach out for help, don’t wait.
Please let me know if this post was helpful for you or not, I am happy to hear your experiences and solutions. Hit me up on my social media or you can write an email, I will answer asap :)