Raise the average
Learn what you are capable of then improve
Performance anxiety (stage fright)
I’m sure that at some point in their lives every single one of my readers has had some kind of experience with performance anxiety or stage fright. If you are expected to stand up in front of a lot of people then a feeling of dread can end up interfering with your ability to perform even if it is something that you are good at.
But the reality is that when you are up on stage giving a speech, under normal circumstances you are not in any physical danger. If you say the wrong thing when you are on stage there is no trapdoor that is going to open up beneath you and drop you into a tank full of sharks. But sometimes we act like that will be the result if we slip up.
If you are giving a speech or lecture and you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world. I’ve done a lot of public speaking in my life and I have always found that if something goes wrong the best thing to do is not to take it too seriously and to carry on as if it isn’t a big deal. Because generally, it isn’t. You care about it more than the audience does. You know what ideal is, but your audience doesn’t.
And one thing about public speaking and performance anxiety is that the more you perform, the less anxious you get when you need to perform. If you take someone with no experience of public speaking and tell them they are going to need to make a speech in front of 50 people, chances are they are going to freak out. But if you take someone who has a lot of public speaking experience they are likely to be unfazed. Especially if they usually speak to larger audiences. “Only 50? I spoke to a crowd of 200 people last week.”
The task is the same but the attitude towards it is different. That is the power of experience.
The first time is always the hardest
People who follow me know that I run a lot and I run very long distances. If I am obliged to run a marathon today, I know all I need to do is put on a pair of shoes and run the distance. I’m confident I can do it because not only have I run multiple marathons before, but I’ve run multiple races that are more than double the distance of a marathon. One of them even had the first aid station at almost the distance of a full marathon.
But if someone who has never run a marathon before is told that they are obliged to run a marathon, they will probably not react the same way that I do. They may be very much capable of running a marathon, but because they have never done it before they don’t have the confidence in themselves to actually go out and run the distance. They might also have that mantra running through their head of:
The first man who ever ran a marathon did it then died of exhaustion.
Realistically, traveling 42.195 km on foot is not going to kill you. I am convinced that most people complete a marathon, but they don’t do it because they put up a lot of barriers that prevent them from doing so. Most of which are psychological and have to do with people thinking that they are obliged to move at a pace they are unable to sustain for the entire distance.
However, once you have gathered up enough courage to run a marathon and cross that finish line for the first time, something happens to you both physically and mentally. Something that appeared to be out of reach (mentally and physically) has become an actual achievement. And once someone has run a marathon there tends to be a few things that happen to them:
“Never again” (Hang up their running shoes and never run a marathon again. But still consider signing up for another one from time to time).
“I can do it quicker!” (Realize what they did is achievable and want to improve).
“What’s next?” (Psychological break that makes the runner consider getting into more extreme endurance events).
When I ran my first marathon I was very much in the third category. I signed up for an ultra almost immediately after and I continue to both push the limits with long distances and also try to get faster at shorter distances.
When you discover that your “limit” isn’t really the limit, you discover a new frontier to explore and what you have done is essentially territory that you’ve conquered.
Familiar obstacles don’t get in your way
Although I do a lot of road running I enjoy trail running as well. But a trail run is a totally different game to a run on the road and trail runs are much slower than runs done on smooth, hard surfaces.
When you run on a trail you need to contend with climbing, descending, roots, rocks, branches, potentially slippery surfaces, and occasional encounters with wildlife that can throw you off. (I’ve recently almost been tripped over by squirrels and have still not psychologically recovered from running into a gigantic spider web that literally knocked my hat off). When you are running on an unfamiliar trail you are constantly making adjustments for all of these obstacles that might come up, but this changes when you have a regular trail.
There are some local trails that I run that I have become very familiar with. On these trails I know if there are areas where water pools, if there are loose roots I need to watch out for, how long and steep the hills are, and if there are any branches I need to duck under. The more I know a trail, the more I can navigate it with speed and the lower my risk of injury on those trails.
Obstacles don’t disappear when you are familiar with them. They just stop feeling like they are in your way. That root I tripped over once doesn’t disappear. I just know where it is and can get past it without being tripped by it again.
Familiarity puts us in a place where we are comfortable, and being comfortable and once we are comfortable we have more of an opportunity to flourish.
Comfortably improve the average
If you run a 5K race course 9 times and your time is 25 minutes, running it a 10th time in 20 minutes will make your average time 24 minutes and 30 seconds.
Realistically, no one is doing this, but this is just to illustrate that one good result can raise the bar. And whether this works on a physiological level or not doesn’t matter. Psychologically, going in with the mindset that you are pulling up your average with every good time is going to make you improve.
For quite a long time my 5K time has been around 20 minutes. On good days I might get just under 20 minutes but usually it was just over 20 minutes. But in the past three weeks I’ve done three sub-20 5Ks in a row (including my first sub-19 minute 5K). I’m not sure how long I can keep up this trend (the weather suddenly becoming hotter may end up demolishing this streak), but I felt a big shift in the way I approached the runs even between last week and the week before.
Two weeks ago I ran an 18:47 5K. Last week I said to myself, “I’m going to run a sub-20 minute 5K. But I don’t need to go for a personal best.” I ran that 5K in 19:12. Three weeks ago I went in with the attitude of, “I’m going to run as hard as I can,” and I ran it in 19:37. It is almost as if the confidence I had (based on my experience) made the effort required less strenuous.
It’s much easier to improve upon something once you are comfortable there. I have comfortably been a 20 minute 5K runner for quite a long time. It has taken a lot of effort to more consistently break into that 19 minute zone. And if I can keep this up, hopefully I will become someone who is comfortably a 19 minute 5K runner.
Moving the average is key. This can be done with one amazing result, but you need to keep consistently performing to be able to make a real shift and improve in whatever you are attempting to do.
Final thoughts and take home messages
Everyone experiences performance anxiety at some point in their lives. But once you’ve actually done the thing that has been bothering you, you realize that the reality is nowhere near as bad as you thought it was going to be. And the more experience you have, the easier the thing becomes.
The first time you do something is always going to be the hardest. The main reason for this is that you have no frame of reference about whether you can achieve the thing or not. Your first marathon will always be your hardest marathon. Your first tournament will always be your hardest tournament. The difficulty level of the thing is not lowered the next time you do it, but your attitude towards it changes. That’s what makes it easier.
Familiarity creates comfort. We grow when we get out of our comfort zone but our comfort zone is where we do most of our performance. Once doing something feels effortless, that’s when you have the opportunity to get better.
Getting an amazing result once will objectively bring up your average…on paper. But if you want to really get better, the best thing you can do is aim to keep improving bit by bit and aim to really move that average.
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