I recently met with a business client (who I will call Linda - not her real name, of course) who complained of intense stage fright prior to giving presentations. She said she was mostly okay once she started but suffered in the time leading up to the event.
What was the suffering all about? Well, Linda, like most people, had created a story in her head that she was reacting to as if it were real.
The story went like this: “I’m not good at this. They won’t like me. They will discover I am an imposter. They will lose respect for me.” Who wouldn’t suffer, hearing these terrible accusations! (Isn’t it interesting how nasty we can be towards ourselves? Who would say such things to another person?)
Linda was surprised to discover that her head was filled with such stuff but then negative thinking is so automatic, most people aren’t aware of it. They’re only aware that they feel lousy.
I asked Linda to write out her story in detail. Actually writing down the story is important since we process information differently when we write it than if we simply think about it. Plus there’s something impressive about seeing your own personally created story in black and white.
Linda’s story began like this: “Once upon a time there was a woman named Linda who gave a talk to her business colleagues and her boss. Linda really bombed. She was inept and boring and everyone snickered at her incompetence…”
Once the story was written, we analyzed it. First she was asked if she really beleived the story to be true and if so, what was the evidence to support her belief? At this point, she laughed because she saw that she had no hard evidence; it was all conjecture based on nothing concrete. Linda was then asked to create an alternative story that could be supported by evidence. At first, Linda thought that she had no evidence since she really had no idea how people might respond to her presentation. But then she recalled that she had given a presentation prevously to some of the same people and that several told her she had done a fine job. Ah ha! so, could she build a new story based on that experience, I wondered?
Yes indeed. Here is Linda’s alternative story: “Once upon a time Linda gave a talk to her business colleagues and she managed to get through it alive and in one piece. No one died. No one threw things at her. No one told her she was stupid. No one fired her. As a matter of fact, 2 people told her she did a good job.”
After writing this second story, Linda’s anxiety lessened. Note that the second story wasn’t pollyanna-ish wonderful; it was mostly neutral but that was enough to remove the impact and power of the negativity of the original story.
Now if some of you are wondering - what if she did bomb in the past…how do you change that? Here’s the answer. You don’t pretend something is okay if it isn’t. If she bombed in the past, I would invite her to view that as data, as information that can be useful. How? We would look at what factors were in play. Was she adequately prepared and did she have command over her material? Did she connect with her audience? Could people hear her? How was the talk organized? In other words, we would look at what went well and what went wrong and then we would find ways to correct what went wrong to ensure that it wouldn’t happen in the future.
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