First-time nerves!
Doing anything for the first time is nerve-wracking. I think we often forget that or we convince ourselves that it’s only us that gets nervous and everyone else is just fine!
I’ve shared more than once that I enjoy public speaking but I didn’t always and every time I face a public speaking first I have those first-time nerves. I’m writing this the day I delivered my first masterclass as a guest speaker. I enjoyed it which I knew I would but yesterday and this morning there were definite first-time nerves. I now know that the best way to deal with nerves is to reframe them as excitement.
Nerves and excitement feel exactly the same in our body so our brain chooses how to interpret that feeling. Years of feeling nervous every time I do something new and my brain automatically registers that feeling as nerves or even fear so I have to make a conscious choice to reframe that feeling as excitement. It takes a little practice but it’s does work. Here’s how. Think about the event – in my case my masterclass. Then imagine something really good that will come out of it or happen because of it. In my case I know from experience that I always get a real high after I’ve delivered a talk or a workshop. Partly the relief that it’s done and went well, partly the high from the interaction and feedback. So I choose to tell myself that the butterflies in my tummy are because I’m excited about delivering the workshop and seeing what ideas and actions it prompts in my audience.
That helps deal with the nerves, but what about the worry that first time anything brings? What if something goes wrong? It’s my first time so there may be things I haven’t anticipated. It’s my first time so I haven’t had lots of time to practice and get better yet. Well, the fact is for the majority of us our first time trying something new is not going to be as good or as easy as the 10th, 20th or 100th time we do it. And that’s okay. It’s okay to be a beginner. As adults we get so used to being good at stuff that we can end up avoiding trying anything new because we don’t want to be a beginner again and to have to go through that learning process. And that’s such a shame. How many opportunities to grow and develop do we turn down for fear of not being good enough at first? How many things would we like to try but don’t give ourselves permission to be a beginner and get things wrong?
For some of us this comes down to perfectionism which, oddly enough, was the subject of this morning’s masterclass. We don’t start things for fear of not being perfect. For fear of being found wanting. The only person expecting you to be perfect the first time you do something is you! And newsflash, perfect does not actually exist.
In their book “The Confidence Code”(which I highly recommend by the way) Katty Kay and Claire Shipman say, “But, of all the warped things that women do to themselves to undermine their confidence, we found the pursuit of perfection to be the most crippling. If perfection is your standard, of course you will never be fully confident, because the bar is always impossibly high, and you will inevitably and routinely feel inadequate.”
Let that sink in, “If perfection is your standard, of course you will never be fully confident, because the bar is always impossibly high, and you will inevitably and routinely feel inadequate.”
Seriously – who wants to feel inadequate? And yet this is what we choose to do to ourselves on a daily basis when we are stuck in perfectionism.
First-time nerves are normal – and can be reframed. Not being an expert at something the first time, or in fact the first few times you do something is also normal. If we cultivated the attitude of “I am going to try to do the best I can” it would make first, second, third, 23rd, 33rd time of anything so much easier. And “I am going to try to do the best I can” means the best you can do in your current circumstances. With your current level of knowledge and expertise. With the resources available to you. With the time available to you. That’s what best means.
I’m launching my podcast, Unlock Your Confidence with Clare Walsh this month. It’s brought up all the first-time feelings but I’ve chosen to focus on how exciting it is to be able to share my message with even more women. I’ve focused on what an adventure it is to have my own podcast. Adventure is after all my word for 2020. And, most importantly I’ve focused on trying to do the best I can with my current level of knowledge, expertise, resources and time. Those resources include a podcast producer who is going to deal with a lot of the tech for me but other than that I’m recording using my laptop, a microphone, a pop-filter and that’s it. No high-tech studio, just me in my home office. And that’s okay.
This podcast has been a long time coming and I’m really excited that it will finally be out in the world this month. It’s my dream to help at least 1,000 women to grow their confidence during 2021 and this podcast is part of my pathway to making that happen. I’ll be bringing you a fortnightly dose of inspiration, advice, stories, tools and techniques that will help you to unlock your confidence and create the life that lights you up. Your life, your way!
If you’re a podcast fan I’d be so grateful for your support by listening, leaving me a review in Apple podcasts and subscribing wherever you listen. It would also be a great help if you could share my social media posts about my podcast so I can let even more people know about it. As a thank you for doing this I’ll be offering two prizes of a one-to-one coaching session with me worth £150. All you need to do to be entered in the draw is to share my posts and tag me so that I know you’ve done it. And the more times you do it the more entries you'll get in the draw!
The launch date is set for Thursday 17th December and I’ll be posting about it in my Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. I’d really appreciate your support in any way you can as I embark on this first-time adventure.
