Standing, shaking, frightened and rocking?

I have always wondered what the sensation of being in the spot light and being the focus of attention would be like when I was a youngin’. I thought it would be so awesome to have everyone look right at me and actually desire to see what I have to offer. I always played guitar because it seemed so cool to be able to create things that people actually enjoyed hearing, so naturally, I wanted to play in front of people after getting better.

The first experience playing in front of people that were not friends and family was an extremely scary one for me. I did not expect that I would be so worried about standing in front of a bunch of people and doing something I’ve practiced thousands of times before.

But I did…

My knees shook and my hands began to sweat. I could not look away from my guitar and up at the staring faces. I played and winced as if I were in physical pain for every mistake I made – which made me make more mistakes. The whole time I felt like just leaving mid song and never come back. But I didn’t want to let down my band mates, I was the only guitarist and the music we played would not be the same.

So I suffered for the entirety of the first two or three songs. But something happened.

I started to ease up on the terrible feelings I had. I looked up and saw people jamming their heads and moving their bodies. I loosened up and started moving around a bit more and the feeling turned into something different.

I can only describe that feeling as the ultimate bliss…

 

Years later, this feeling of fear has turned into a form of rush that actually turns my energy up several notches and leads me to playing more aggressively and more eccentrically purely for entertainment. What was once an almost debilitating fear is now an adrenaline rush.

No more stage fright.

The basic feelingdoesn’t go away but with some conditioning, you can turn the jitters into something positive that will end up making you perform better. The real issue is making it past those first few frightening shows, because you can’t avoid it, you just have to make it through them.

There is not a wonder solution to the issue, you just need to change your own mindset, which may be extremely difficult for some.  But the reality is that the key to a strong stage performance is to convince yourself that you are amazing at what you do.

I can tell you that after just getting up on that stage and telling myself that people want me to play that I have become more and more capable of having fun doing what had initially intrigued me as a kid. Sharing the things you create with others is an experience I hope everyone gets to have at some point in their lives because it is unlike any other. Stage fright is a real issue but it isn’t something that has to stay forever. You can essentially choose to be without it, you just have to know how to believe.