119. Stop saying you're nervous

If you've ever described yourself as a nervous public speaker this episode will blow your mind, shift your language and turn your beliefs on their head.

I explain the power of language, and how to speak a much better brighter speaking story in to existence.

Transcript

Hello, hello! I am diving straight into direct mode here: stop saying you're nervous. If reading the title of this episode and hearing me say those words have left you feeling a bit attacked, maybe a bit confused. Well, maybe just curious, because you're thinking, Sal, what am I meant to say? Well, this episode is going to blow your mind and get you to think about the words you use in a whole new way.

People often asked me, Sal, do you get nervous before speaking? And in the past, I would say, yeah, I do. And I like it. I embrace nerves. It's not about not getting them. It's about knowing what to do with them, how to harness that energy. I know those nerves are preparing my body for action. I'd actually be concerned if I didn't get any nerves. It's not the nerves themselves.

It's the relationship you have with the word. Do you say, Woohoo! I am nervous. Here we go. It's happening. It's happening. Or do you associate the word nervous with something negative? And so from the minute you use that word, I'm nervous, you officially start the negative spiral down. The way we think about words matters.

That word might be nerves. It might be anxiety. It might be stress. There's an excellent TED Talk called How to make stress your friend by Kelly McGonigal, where they did studies showing it wasn't the stress itself that caused people worry and negative impacts on their physical health. It wasn't the stress.

It was the way people thought about their stress. Yeah, people who are stressed, but thought it was a great thing had healthier hearts. I'll play a little excerpt for you. It's so cool:

“Now that is exactly what participants were told in a study conducted at Harvard university. Before they went through the social stress test, they were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful. That pounding heart is preparing you for action.

If you're breathing faster, it's no problem. It's getting more oxygen to your brain. And participants who learned to view the stress response as helpful for their performance while they were less stressed out, less anxious, more confident, but the most fascinating finding to me was how their physical stress response changed.

Now in a typical stress response, your heart rate goes up and your blood vessels constrict like this. And this is one of the reasons that chronic stress is sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease. It's not really healthy to be in this state all the time, but in the study when participants viewed their stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed relaxed like this. Their heart was still pounding, but this is a much healthier cardiovascular profile.

It actually looks a lot like what happens in moments of joy and courage. Over a lifetime of stressful experiences, this one biological change could be the difference between a stress induced heart attack at age 50 and living well into your nineties. And this is really what the new science of stress reveals, that how you think about stress matters.”

Woah, right. So when it comes to speaking, ask yourself, do you have a negative association with the words you use? If you're not going, Woohoo!, I am nervous, then change the way you think about nerves. Better yet, dump the word all together and stop saying you're nervous. I explained in the past when people asked if I got nervous, I would respond with yes and I welcome those nerves.

I embrace those nerves. I explained my great relationship with the word nerves. I believe now, it's easier to not use it at all. So now if someone asks, if I get nervous, I say, well, my heart starts beating faster. I feel like I want to shake my hands out. There's like a rising red river in my body, and I feel like everybody can see it.

And I'd imagine some people might describe those physical sensations as nerves. I described them as excited. As anticipation, the feeling I'm about to perform. We know that nerves and excitement feel the same way in the body, or if you didn't, you know now! Nerves and excitement feel the same way in the body.

It's the mind assigning them. So why would you slap a label on yourself that has a negative association for you rather than address the physical sensations in the body, which can be easily attributed to a more helpful description. What if the label nerves, anxiety, what if the label caused the unhelpful thought pattern wouldn't it be so much better to focus on the physical sensations over the abstract self-diagnosis? So when a client comes to me and says, I get nervous before speaking, I say, how specifically? what sensations do you feel in the body and I guarantee every physical sensation, whether it's the pounding heart, the sweaty palms, the tension around the throat, the shaky knee, whatever it is, we can give it a more helpful description and we can target a solution to it.

We answer the body with the body, and that's something we go into more detail in my programs. But if you insist on continuing to say, you're nervous, to say you're anxious, to say you're freaked out and you don't have a good association with those words, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And you are instructing your mind and body how to feel and think before you've even said your opening line.

And you wonder why it didn't feel good.

Stop saying you're nervous. Stop saying you're anxious. Stop giving yourself labels. Start describing your physical sensations. Start using positive language, and start seeing the difference this makes to your presentations. Start seeing the difference this makes to how you feel before, during and after speaking.

You're excited. Your body is preparing you for peak performance. You can't wait to share your message with your audience. You are cool, calm, connected, confident. Gosh, how many C words can you think of? You get the drift? Every word you use speaks your life into existence, so be conscious of the words you use.

They matter. That self-talk becomes real talk, becomes your reality.

Wow. How are you feeling? Has this episode been a wake up call? Has it challenged you, has it inspired you? I would love to hear your feedback on my Instagram @sallyprosservoice. Please share a story and tag me, or DM me. And if you are not stepping out and speaking with sheer confidence and joy every time you want to, then why not do something about it?

Reach out for a free chat. I'll put the link in the show notes. And whether it's joining a group program, working with me one-on-one or just asking for more resources about this, this is absolutely something I can help you address. So make the decision today to boot out language that isn't serving you, and speak in a way that reflects the reality you want.

Sally Prosser