Beat performance anxiety with these quick tips
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
How do products end up on big box shelves? Well, we at Planet Money pitch the Planet Money board game. I'm trying not to think how much of a big deal it is and how much work has gone into it.
It's really big. Is it helpful if I remind you how big it is? It's sort of the whole thing.
We go inside the minds of the people who decide what goes on store shelves. Listen to Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. I ran track
in high school and I found that I would always do the best when the least was expected of me. So to run varsity there were only maybe seven varsity spots and you had to get a certain time in a previous race and then you would be on varsity. And every time I did that and I would run on the varsity race, I would choke. And then every time that I ran on JV, I would get a better time than I did when I was running varsity. It was just performance anxiety, I guess.
Yeah. I'm not surprised to hear that. One of the things that I teach is to have a wide variety of goals, like a gold, silver, bronze goal, because your gold goal is typically like the outcome goal that you really want, but an outcome is something you can't control. And so you decrease your anxiety, increase your confidence when you set a range of goals. What are some other types of goals that you might have? Well, let's say for example, your daughter is running the mile, okay? So her gold goal might be to win the race. But her bronze goal would be something that she's still happy with, and that might be to finish really strong and the last lap. And then the middle goal is a silver goal that's somewhere in between.
Maybe she wants to run a personal best.
You're listening to Life Kit, I'm Marielle Segarra, and that was Sindra Kampoff, author of The Confidence Habit.
What is performance anxiety and how does it show up in everyday situations?
Sindra has a PhD in performance psychology, and she does mental training with professional athletes and corporate executives who need to perform at a high level. Two of the things they focus on are confidence and
Performance anxiety. There's cognitive anxiety, anxiety in your head. And this typically sounds like automatic negative thoughts, like uh, what if I screw up? What if I don't have what it takes? Where the second type of anxiety is called somatic anxiety, and this is anxiety in your body. And so it's important to know where your anxiety is coming from or how it appears. So you use tools and strategies to be able to combat that performance.
I wonder when does performance anxiety show up for people? Because you don't just have to be an Olympian or giving a talk in front of a bajillion people.
That's true. For the average person, it's any time where you're doing something that you really care about. And that might be like speaking your mind, sharing your opinion. That could be applying for a new job. So it's anytime you're really outside your comfort zone when you're really pushing yourself. But we know that's actually how you keep growing and learning is to push yourself past your comfort zone. And that's why confidence is so important. I think of confidence as a feeling that actually comes and goes. It's also a decision you get to make. You get to decide in the moment are you gonna be confident. And many times the action of confidence comes before the feeling. So we can overcome performance anxiety.
Yes, absolutely. On this episode of Life Kit, Sindra shares tools you can use to manage your anxiety and build your confidence before, during, and after a performance or a high-stakes task, whether that's a presentation at work, a job interview, a race, or something else.
On the next threw line from NPR.
Let's listen to Josh Reddick's new walk-up song.
Whether you love it or you hate it, walk-up music has become a huge part of Major League Baseball. The need to secure the attention of the fans is relentless. I thought, am I hearing things? I mean, I realize everybody's singing along. Listen to NPR Strough Line in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You've got a lot of ways to get news, and a lot of podcasts in your feed that take a long time to get to the point.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:47
2
What is performance anxiety and how does it show up in everyday situations?
1:47–5:19
3
How can setting gold, silver, and bronze goals reduce performance anxiety?
5:19–18:40
4
What is the ‘Truth Meter’ and how does it help re‑frame anxious thoughts?
18:40–19:06
Speakers
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