Do you still remember the moments in life where you felt apprehensive – tense, nervous, afraid – about an upcoming event or maybe even about the future?
Perhaps it was an exam. I sometimes wake in a cold sweat having dreamed that I still have to take my final law exam.
Maybe it was an important presentation or speech or a meeting that mattered.
And your palms were sweaty, your throat dry and your heart racing.
In that moment of discomfort, it would be so easy to walk away, to avoid the challenge, to give up the fight, in an effort to return to a state of calm.
A study of swimmers before a race, found that the difference that separated the winners from the losers was reframing their nerves from a threat to seeing them as performance fuel.
The key is not to stay calm or to return to a state of calm but to experience the physical sensations as your “inner applause”.
Rather than seek to avoid or run away from the discomfort, acknowledge what it is signalling – that this moment matters and that your body is cheering you on.
The fact is that your body often knows something important is happening before your mind knows how to react.
Reframing nerves as energy is a small shift from fear to excitement, from a stop sign to an opportunity and from hesitation to commitment.
When life is tough and the future uncertain, it can be easy to seek calm and to avoid the inner noise and discomfort by all manner of distractions but that leads to smallness rather than adventure.
Instead of avoiding, let us seek out that applause more often and cheer ourselves on to greater achievement despite the uncertain times that we live in.
Taking risks, trusting life and the idea that what you need most is cheering on not cheering up.
There is freedom waiting for you
On the breezes of the sky
And you ask, “What if I fall?”
“Oh, but my darling,
What if you fly?”
– Erin Hanson –