Beat performance anxiety with these quick tips
Life Kit
In this episode of Life Kit, mental performance coach Cindra Kamphoff provides actionable psychological strategies to combat performance anx
Key takeaways
- Cindra Kamphoff distinguishes between cognitive anxiety (mental thoughts) and somatic anxiety (physical sensations).
- The 'Truth Meter' tool helps challenge negative thoughts by asking if they are true and if they serve the individual.
Main topics
- Performance anxiety management
- Cognitive vs. somatic anxiety
Notable quotes
The action of confidence comes before the feeling.
Conclusion
Mastering performance anxiety requires moving from reactive criticism
Transcript preview
Speaker 6 (0:00) This message comes from TED Talks Daily, a podcast with a new idea every day to spark your curiosity. Learn about how you can improve your own life with talks about tech, science, human connection, and more. Find TED Talks Daily wherever you listen. Speaker 3 (0:16) 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. Speaker 2 (0:48) 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 Speaker 1 (1:07) 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. OK, so her gold goal might be to Speaker 2 (1:17) win the race, but her bronze goal would be something that she's still happy with. And that might be to finish really strong in 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. Speaker 3 (1:31) You're listening to Life Kit. I'm Mariel Cigarra. And that was Sindra Kampoff, author of The Confidence Habit. Sindra has a Ph.D. in performance psychology, and she does mental training with professional athletes and corporate executives who need to perform at a high level. Speaker 1 (1:47) Two of the things they focus on are confidence and performance anxiety. There's cognitive anxiety, anxiety in Speaker 2 (1:54) your head. And this typically sounds like automatic negative thoughts, like 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 anxiety. I Speaker 3 (2:17) 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. Speaker 2 (2:26) That's true. For the average person, it's any time where you're doing something 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 going to be confident? And many times the action of confidence Speaker 1 (3:00) comes before the feeling. So we can overcome performance anxiety. Yes, absolutely. Speaker 3 (3:05) 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. Speaker 4 (3:25) This is Ira Glass. On This American Life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy, David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant turn. And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right. Because the monkey pressed the button. Surprising stories every week, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (3:49) This November, there's a wave of Democrats running for office who are all members of the clergy. But can they convince the party's secular base? I don't think Speaker 6 (3:58) religion should play into government and politics at all. I thought the country was founded on that. On Speaker 5 (4:04) the Sunday Story, how Democratic pastors are reframing the role of faith in American politics. Listen now to the Sunday Story from the Up First podcast on the NPR app. How do products end up on big box shelves? Well, we at Planet Money pitch the Planet Money board Speaker 6 (4:20) game. Speaker 5 (4:20) I'm trying not to think how much of a big deal it is and how much work has gone into it. It's Speaker 6 (4:25) really big. Is it helpful if I remind you how big it is? It's sort of the whole thing. We Speaker 5 (4:29) 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. Speaker 7 (4:39) This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. Each week we go beyond the headlines and dive deep into an issue like the Epstein files, the dismantling of voting rights, and the conflicts abroad. Listen to Fresh Air interviews to better understand our world. Find us on the