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It's not uncommon to have butterflies whenever you step up to the microphone to read. As long as it doesn't get in the way of your performance. There are ways to overcome anxiety, in this video Anne goes over a few of her favorites.
How to overcome the butterflies in your throat.
Today. I want to talk about performance anxiety.
Yeah, we all go through it. Performance anxiety affects us all. And there are a couple of things that you can do to reduce your performance anxiety. A lot of times when we're in our booth and we're behind the mic, it's like something overtakes us. Like we could be having the best conversation, doing a read out loud before we go into our studio to record and everything is fine and we're relaxed. And then all of a sudden. Behind that mic. And for whatever reason, we feel like we have to perform. That's part of what performance anxiety is contributing to.
Remember you go into your studio, it's nothing different than when you're, you just were outside of your studio practicing. And that's something that is like a muscle memory trained thing. When you first start out, you may always get behind the mic and get nervous, but if you practice enough times and just get in your studio behind the mic, relax and do more and more and more and practice and practice and practice.
It's really going to help with the performance anxiety that you feel. When you first start out in this industry, some things that can really help you to relax for me, a big one is breathing. I like to do deep breathing or diaphragmatic breathing. So to do that, you want to make sure that you are breathing in through your nose. I like to count for three seconds and then exhale through your mouth for double that amount of time. So inhale through your nose for three seconds and exhale for six. Then you can just let it go. And you can also count when this happens. It's a really great exercise to just reduce your heart rate, allow you to relax a little bit, and it's always great to breathe.
Like it's good for your breathing. So do that at least three to five times before you start to perform. And I think you're going to notice some really wonderful effects that it will have on how it can relax you. So the other thing is to just trust yourself. Again, I think it's, it comes down to having a lot of experience behind the mic in the studio.
And it's something that you can do every single day by yourself. You don't necessarily need to meet with a coach to do that. You can go right into your studio, do your breathing exercises, and then just start to read, read every script that you can. Trust in yourself. Everything's going to be okay. And then when you get into the studio with, let's say a live directed session, I think you're going to find that things will be a lot simpler for those live director's sessions.
You can also enlist the help of an accountability buddy. So you guys can get together and read in front of each other, or even join a workout group. That's a really great way to get over performance anxiety, go work out in front of a bunch of people and read in front of a bunch of people. As a matter of fact, I have a VO Peeps group designed specifically for that every month I have workouts where you can read in front of a lot of people and read in front of a guest director.
And you can also read in the member club amongst your peers. So it's a wonderful way to get used to reading aloud in front of other people so that when you do have a live-directed session, it can go a whole lot smoother.
Remember, breathe and trust in the process and practice, practice, practice. And I think you'll find that your performance anxiety will be a whole lot less.
Thanks for reading!
Keep on rocking your business like a #VOBOSS
About Anne:
Anne Ganguzza is a professional voice actor and award-winning director and producer who works with students to develop their voiceover and business skills - including voice over Coaching and Genre-based Demo Production. She specializes in conversational Commercial & Narration styles, including Corporate, eLearning, Technology, and On-Hold Messaging. Located in Orange County, California, Anne offers private coaching and mentoring services to students via ipDTL and Zoom.