The Ritual

The All Blacks get ready for action.

Prepare, Practice, Ritual:  How to Manage Presentation Stress and Nervousness, Part III

And now let's take a look at Ritual.  As anyone who's had to perform knows, there's always nervous energy before the big show.

It doesn't matter if it's an athlete, a rock star, an experienced actor, or a presenter.

The human body is hard-wired to automatically go into fight or flight mode at the first sign of danger.

Now, genrally speaking, performing isn't dangerous, but the feelings we get before we perform send the same signals to the brain.   That means that no matter how prepared and practiced you are (and the more, the better), the brain will still swtich to fight or flight mode.  The question is not do you have some nervous energy, the question is what do you do woth it?
Do you let it rule you as fear or do you channel it into a productive way?

A personal Ritual before you perform can help you to focus that nervous energy so you can use it in a controlled yet powerful opening.  Take the World Champion All Balcks rugby team for example.  Before every match they get focus and psyched up by doing a special Ritual:  the Maori war dance.  This traditional ritual helps the New Zealanders harness their natural fight or flight mechanism and turn it into a great way to start a rugby match: at full power.

The take-away here is that you would be well-served by finding and using your own Ritual.
Finding the right Ritual is a very individual thing.
The only requirement is that it works for you.

Me?  My Ritual before every event is to rock out with my IPod or in my head to various hard rock songs.
Sometimes it's AC/DC or Aerosmith or whatever song gets me focused and pumped up.
Then, I'm ready to deliver a powerful and energised opening, and my nervous energy flows into this.
Together with being well-Preared and Practiced, the Ritual is the fianl key to managing presentation stress and nervousness.