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Step 3: Learn to face avoidance

Our favourite trick for eliminating performance anxiety is avoidance. However, this does nothing but continue the fear. Acknowledging the fear and doing the task anyway is the most successful strategy. This is sometimes referred to as the 'acceptance paradox'.

Step 4: Prepare

Whether you're planning to attend a job interview, to chair a meeting, or strike up a conversation with someone you're interested in, it helps to prepare first. You're likely to have increased confidence if you have a plan and you don't have to improvise when the adrenalin is pumping.

Example Preparation might involve: Job interview Conducting a mock interview beforehand, researching the job and the employer, being clear on what you have to offer the employer and why you want the job. Seminar or presentation Planning the talk, preparing aids such as OHPs, cue cards, powerpoint, practising out loud and getting feedback from someone who will listen, checking out the room where the presentation will be held beforehand. Sitting an exam Reading widely, targeted study, brushing up on exam techniques, looking at past exam papers. Meeting new people Observing how other confident people do it, knowing your body language and what works, knowing how to "do small talk".

 

Step 5: Look at how your thinking can stress or calm you

People are extremely suggestible when they are anxious. Therefore if they're engaging in negative self-talk they can bring about failure purely and simply because of what they tell themselves rather than responding to real external events. Likewise, engaging in positive and calming self-talk can help them to improve their performance and to act confidently.

If we put a tape recorder in your mind now I wonder what kinds of messages you would be giving yourself? Would we hear the inner critic or the inner fan club?

As human beings we often engage is unhelpful and self-sabotaging thoughts. Here are some examples:

• "I just don't fit in."
  
• "I've never been any good at study so I don't know why that should change now."
  
• "Maybe if I'd enrolled in a Science course I would be doing better."
  
• "None of my lecturers like me."
  
• "I'll never learn how to write well."
  
• "I don't know why I have to learn this. I'll never use it."

Note any that you particularly relate to and then:

• Identify whether your thought is helpful or unhelpful.
  
• Remember filling your head with scary thoughts diminishes your performance.
  
• Replace unhelpful thoughts with calm thoughts.
  
• Practice control and confidence.
  
• Learn to relax so that when a stressful situation arises you will be in a calmer frame of mind to deal with it.