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Performance Anxiety: The Masters Training

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The key to mastering stage fright and other performance anxieties is to have an understanding of just what kind of problem you are dealing with. There are many ways to cope with phobias, including stage fright, however, each situation is different as there are varies forms of common phobias.

Performance Anxiety, also referred as a fear of public speaking is one of the most common phobias. People who fears and other interests that require them to take the “stage”, such as actors, athletes, etc. will experience stage freight as an impairment of their own particular activity.

This week is the Masters tournament for those professional golfers on the Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour. The Masters tournament is the first major championship …show more content…

Millions of men and women are watching, and come Sunday stage fright is not an option for many of these players. How do they overcome the burden and the anxiety on Sunday evening on the eightieth green, while looking at a four-foot putt to win? Like many athletes, these players are just as nervous as many of us would be. The only difference is their confidence in their proven sport and the ability to block out all those distractions that would cause a major impairment of anxiety or stage fright.

The four common factors that go into having stage fright; they are fear, regrets, anticipatory, and shame. Some people go to great extremes to avoid any possibility of being on stage or speak in public. These types of people go to extremes to avoid any presentation of opportunity to speak in public. These people usually succeed in avoiding such situations and often have regret about the way this fear controlled their life choices. Those who belong in this group seem troubled by both fear and regret …show more content…

It stems from the tendency to resist your anxiety, rather than to accept and work with it. This is how many of those professional golfers cope with anxiety during major championship tournaments. These players focus on the work in hand and the performance and not all the distractions that are around them. Stage fright is the result of thinking of the performance situation as a threat or the impossible, rather than a challenge.

How do we conquer stage fright or performance anxiety? There are various ways to cope with stage fright, but the most crucial coping mechanism is learning how breathe calmly. Proper breathing techniques do not come naturally, and takes practice. The example of the professional golfers, coming down the stretch to win a major championship and overlooking the four-foot putt to win a major requires them to breathe calmly.

Remind yourself that the audience is not here to see or hear you. They are there to see the person who is talking about a topic or to the person who performs. Expect, and accept, that you will feel anxious, especially at first. If you allow yourself to work with the anxiety, not against it, you will be able to calm down and use those breathing techniques you need to incorporate to overcome stage fright. If you resist the anxiety, you will make more trouble for

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