See also: Anxiety, Fear, Worry

What Is It About?

Napkin Version

When we need to perform well in a situation that is important to us, our body will mobilize itself ready for action, to increase our chance of success.  If we are ill-prepared however, this nervousness can increase any feelings of self-doubt and negatively affect our performance, unless we take action to prepare ourselves better.

It reflects the gap between what we think the level of capability required for the task is, and what our perceived level of capability is.  So assessing the reality of our capability, is often a good place to start.   

Nervousness has two parts to it - the physiological part and the  psychological part.  Some of the feeling is our body preparing itself for action, and some of it is our interpretation of what we think might happen to us, and our interpretation of the physical feelings.

Each part can feed the other part, so our feeling of nervousness can continue to increase if we stay focussed upon how nervous we feel.

So it can help to settle them together e.g., shifting our interpretation while using a breathing technique.

  • Our level of nervousness will usually drop if we take action to assess the actual risk, then come up with a practical approach to better deal with the situation.

  • Coming up with a doable plan, and if time permits, doing the right preparation and right amount of practice (not too much, and not too little), gives us a process to rely upon when it comes time to perform, helping us to stay calm. 

  • Usually the feeling won’t completely disappear, as it’s a normal part of the body getting ready.  Just knowing this and telling ourselves ‘I am ready’ can help to ease the intensity.

Handling Nervousness

In The Moment

Training our brain to use a relevant process helps us to focus more effectively and move on more easily. Using it often will also help our brain to catch Nervousness sooner, making it easier to manage.

Self-Reflection

If the emotion feels quite troubling, it’s usually worth checking if something else is going on first.

By resolving things in ourselves and clearing any other residual emotions, we can reduce the intensity of the emotion - now and when we encounter it again in future. 

Doing so also makes us less likely to ‘attract’ other difficulties that leave us feeling the same way.

See the Processing and Clearing an Emotion page for a generic process to resolve and clear an emotion.

Working Through Nervousness

The actions we choose to take in response to an emotion can make a significant difference to how well we adjust and move on from it.

The more we take genuine actions that are uplifting and ‘right’ i.e., are good for ourselves and everyone else (including the environment and other living beings) - for now, and over the long-term, the better our experience of life becomes.

How we work through Nervousness depends on whether or not we have time to prepare:

  • If we have time to prepare ourselves better, then the following can help to increase our chances of success, and keep our nervousness at a manageable level:

    • Making a realistic assessment of the situation, the risks, and our capabilities.

    • Developing a good plan that also addresses the risks involved.

    • Checking in with our intuition to gain further insight.

    • Doing the right preparation to put ourselves on the front foot.

    • Establishing a good process for us to follow, then doing the right amount of practice (not too little, and not too much so we know the process works, and it becomes natural for us to follow it.

    • Gradually building up our capability in progressive steps, if time allows us to.

    • If it is something we do often, developing a more structured process so we can standardise what we do, measure it, and improve upon it, so we know how to consistently deliver a good performance, while we continue to improve it.

    • Allowing a good amount of recovery time in between practices and performance.

  • Remembering the physiological aspects of nervousness (see the ‘What Is It About?’ section), and actively working to simultaneously reduce the physiological and psychological aspects together to avoid intensifying the nervousness:

    • Interpreting the nervousness to mean our body is ‘ready’.

    • Using techniques to calm our nervous system and increase our focus.

    The Box Breathing technique may be quite useful here – using counts of 4 to make our way around each side of a square - where we inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, and hold for 4, repeating the process in 4 times. See the Box Breathing technique page for more info.

    • Having an approach in mind that we know is doable, and mentally rehearsing it, especially the start.

    • Appreciating that most people want us to succeed.

    • Releasing excessive tension in our body by taking a walk etc.  Note the key word is ‘excessive’ here, as a small amount of tension can be helpful for directing our focus.  Each person will differ in what works best for them.

    • Distracting our thoughts away from the nervousness.  Focussing upon something in nature, listening to music, or light-hearted conversation with calm, positive, and humorous types can be helpful.

    • Focussing upon the plan and visualising ourselves successfully performing it, and as having successfully completed it.

    • Trusting our process to deliver the outcome.

    • Having faith that we’ll be ok.

    • When it comes time to act, focussing upon the current task, and letting the rest fall into place.

Clearing Residual Nervousness

Emotional energy can stick with us, even after we have worked through and resolved whatever caused it.

There are a number of ways we can clear the energy, including doing something physical in nature, imagining the emotion leaving our body, or for more intense emotions, there is a variety of different therapies and alternative forms of energy healing that can also help.

  • The short video below has been created to help imagine emotional energy leave the body, using the following visualisation process:

    • Imagine holding a ball of energy in your hands, and ‘charging’ it with the feeling of love, and anything else that would help to offset it (especially any feelings that were missing in the situation)

    • Imagine any residual Anger energy flowing out of your body, into the  ball, and being transformed into the positive equivalent.

    • Once all the residual energy has left, imagine the ball shooting far out into the atmosphere and dissolving into pure white light energy.