Coaching practices for How to Get Over Performance Anxiety

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Get Over Performance Anxiety, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• Right before the test or the big moment, my head is so jammed with what-ifs and dread that there’s no room left to actually think
• Right before I go on, my heart’s pounding, my hands are shaking, my mind’s gone tunnel-narrow and blank
• I’m so wound up about nailing this presentation that the pressure to be good is exactly what makes me freeze
• The moment I’m up there performing, my head fills with "how do I look, am I blowing this, what are they thinking"
• There’s a big thing coming up

Practices that may help

1. Write about your worries before a high-stakes performance
   Offload performance anxiety by writing it out in full immediately before the event.
   Choking Under Pressure, Made Practical
2. De-activation Strategies for Over-Arousal
   Use targeted techniques to reduce arousal when anxiety or over-activation is undermining performance.
   The Yerkes-Dodson Law: Finding Your Optimal Performance Zone
3. Use paradoxical intention for performance anxiety
   Before a performance, commit to performing as badly as possible — notice what happens to the anxiety.
   Logotherapy: Paradoxical Intention
4. Shift to task-focused attention under performance anxiety
   Redirect attention from self-monitoring and outcome worry to the specific process cues of the task at hand.
   Attentional Deployment, Made Practical
5. Apply EFT to specific performance anxiety triggers
   EFT has the strongest self-guided evidence for test anxiety, public speaking, and sports performance stress.
   EFT Tapping: What It Is, How to Do It, and What the Evidence Shows
6. Create a pre-performance ritual that includes posture
   A consistent pre-performance ritual — including posture — reduces anxiety and improves performance more reliably than any single element.
   Power Posing Revisited
7. Debrief after performance without letting relief collapse the strategy
   After a successful performance, acknowledge the outcome honestly without abandoning the preparation habit that produced it.
   Defensive Pessimism, Made Practical
8. Design your pre-performance sequence with clear functional anchors
   Build a sequence where every step serves a specific psychological function — not just habit.
   Pre-Performance Routines, Made Practical
9. Standardize the duration of your routine
   Fix the length of your pre-performance sequence so timing does not become a pressure variable.
   Pre-Performance Routines, Made Practical
10. Protect the strategy from well-meaning optimism
    Recognize that others’ "positive thinking" attempts before your performance will disrupt your preparation — and manage that proactively.
    Defensive Pessimism, Made Practical

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