Performance Anxiety Part 1: How to shine in performance and presentation
For anyone whose interviews and auditions don’t show what they can actually do.
As a coach and somatic practitioner, I often work with people who freeze or panic when the stakes are high. People facing interviews, major presentations, auditions, or board meetings, who find their body taking over the moment they are required to perform in front of others.
Most of us know what we are capable of when nobody is watching. That speech was word-perfect in the mirror this morning, but now that you see everyone looking at you, your mind has gone blank. You would give Mariah a run for her money when you sing in the shower, but you believe you couldn’t reproduce that performance for an audience.
Part of what led me to this work was my own experience of performance anxiety as a young musician. In nurturing environments, I could perform freely. But in many of my auditions in the music world, I discovered what an unsupportive environment can do to the body. The fear of judgement took over, leaving me shaking, losing control of my breath, and sounding timid. Auditions, exams, and competitions had wildly inconsistent outcomes, and there was little support for managing ‘nerves’. It was simply treated as something young performers were supposed to figure out on their own.
Performance anxiety isn’t a failure of willpower, it’s a nervous system response. You can learn to work with it if you practise the tools when you do not need them.
Treat it like a scientific experiment
Most people who struggle with performance anxiety know how it shows up in crisis: forgetting words or lyrics, ‘drawing a blank’ on a question they know inside out, shaking, nausea, feeling faint, muscle tension, or a mouth so dry they can barely speak. The realisation that some of these physical signs are visible can trigger a spiral of worry, shame, and self-criticism.
A good place to start is using the spiral as diagnostic data and keeping a performance journal.
After every audition, interview, presentation, or high-stakes meeting, document what happened while it is fresh:
How you felt physically: What were your heart rate, breath, muscle tension, and stomach doing before and during the event?
What the environment was like: Was the room cold, echoing, cramped, or stark? How was the seating arranged? How did you react to any sensory stimulus (lighting, background noise, smells)?
How you were responded to: Did the panel offer eye contact and warmth, or were they rushed, distracted, or stone-faced?
Your overall sense of how it went: Where did you feel present, and where did you feel thrown?
Gaps in memory: Were you so overwhelmed that there are parts of the presentation you cannot remember at all? (If you lost contact with the room to the point of dissociation, that absence of memory is crucial information).
Once you have built up a record of your patterns, triggers, and physical baselines, you can stop relying on generic advice and start matching specific interventions to what your body actually does.
Treat it like a scientific experiment.
Here are four core practices to test against what your journal reveals.
1. Ground yourself
Being grounded means connecting with physical sensation to steady your autonomic nervous system – the internal network regulating your involuntary functions, including heart rate, respiration, and stress responses. Grounding prevents you from dissociating (feeling disconnected from your body, spaced out, or losing touch with the room) or freezing entirely.
Test these concrete grounding cues when you are calm, so they are familiar when you need them:
Push your feet into the floor: Feel the physical resistance beneath you and let your weight drop into your heels
Diaphragmatic breathing: Lengthen your exhale so it is noticeably slower than your inhale, engaging the brake that slows your heart rate
Adopt an open, stable stance: Settle into a posture that feels upright, solid, and moveable, rather than braced or rigid
Orient to the space: Look around the room and identify three objects of a specific colour. Connecting with your physical environment signals to your nervous system that you are in the present, not trapped in an imagined catastrophe
2. Remember that an interview is a two-way street
When you walk into an interview or audition, it is easy to feel powerless – as if the panel holds all the cards and your only task is to win their approval. That dynamic dramatically amplifies performance anxiety.
Situations where a role looks great on paper but feels wrong in person apply equally to both sides of the table. Beyond the natural discomfort of feeling nervous, if something in the room feels off, pay attention to that gut feeling. Reflect on what is behind it, and use the opportunity to ask questions to see whether their answers reassure you.
In highly competitive sectors, people are often conditioned to believe that if they do not tolerate poor conditions, thousands of others are waiting in the wings to take their place. But an indifferent or hostile environment does not deserve your compliance. Reminding yourself that you are also assessing them – testing whether this is a place where you would feel welcome, valued, and respected – rebalances the psychological stakes in the room.
3. Resources and reasonable adjustments
Performance anxiety is often intensified by the assumption that asking for accommodation or needing to use tools for support will be viewed as weakness. Where possible and necessary, do not be afraid to do, and/or ask for what you need to regulate yourself.
In practical terms, that might involve:
Letting an interviewer know you need a moment of silence to settle your thoughts before answering a complex question
Asking for something to be reworded, or to start again if you’ve gone off track
Developing a backstage ritual or grounding routine before you enter the space
Asking the organisation in advance about the format, space, or other details in advance
Scheduling your diary before and after the event to ensure you have protected time to prepare and decompress
In workplace settings, reasonable adjustments related to disability, neurodivergence, or mental health conditions are a legal requirement, not a special favour. Asking for the conditions you need to function is good self-management, not a flaw.
4. Harness the adrenaline
It has become a cliché to say ‘use nervous energy to your advantage’, which is unhelpful advice when the fight, flight, or freeze response has flooded your body with stress hormones. Yet different emotional states share almost identical physical sensations. A rapid pulse, quickened breath, and heightened alertness can signal terror, but they also signal readiness and excitement.
There is a direct loop between thoughts, physical sensations, and emotion. We can influence our state by slowing our breathing, and we can influence our physical response by reframing the sensation – recognising that some of what we call anxiety is actually the body mobilising energy for a demanding task.
Crucially, practising techniques that help you to re-regulate your nervous system when you do not need them means you will respond more quickly and effectively in the moment when you are heading towards overwhelm. Incorporating grounding and breathwork into your daily routine builds muscle memory. When you find yourself in front of a panel with a sudden spike of panic, your body already knows how to find its way back to steady ground.
Look back over your last high-stakes interview or presentation: what is the single physical signal that told you your nervous system was taking over, and what would happen if you logged it instead of judging it?
Work With Me 1:1
If your interview or audition performances often fail to reflect your actual capability, we can work through this together. I offer one-to-one coaching and somatic breathwork sessions to help you map your nervous system's stress responses and build reliable ways to stay grounded when the spotlight turns on.
Book a discovery call to explore 1:1 coaching | Explore breathwork sessions
Companion post: Performance Anxiety Part 2: Supporting candidates to shine in recruitment and audition – for interviewers, panel members, and hiring leads.