Stage Fright - How to Deal with Nerves!!!

So you've finally nailed down the dream job/interview/presentation/meeting, how do you manage those inevitable butterflies when it comes to crunch time??

I started my internship at Perth Theatre Trust (PTT) this week, and boy was I nervous! I remember being a little nervous for an interview with my potential supervisor, but that was nothing compared to this!!! I woke up anxious and fidgety after an restless nights' sleep - not necessarily conducive to making a good first impression! Luckily, my background is in theatre and performing, so I have a whole raft of tips and tricks up my sleeve when dealing with nerves.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who was faced with a few butterflies on my first day, and it certainly won't be the last time I feel nervous before attempting something. Hopefully these tactics are useful to some of you, even if it's only one or two. These methods are drawn from my many years performing in live theatre, but can be applied to anything - an interview, your first day at a new job, an important meeting or even those dreaded in-class oral presentations!

How to Deal with Stage Fright
1. Be prepared.
This is my number one, most important tip. I know from my experience on stage that the worst cases of stage fright come from feeling unprepared. If there is anything you can do to make yourself feel like you a totally prepared, do it! Whether this means reading up on notes before a presentation, practicing your interview answers or doing a test run of the drive to work to check out traffic, being prepared will help calm the butterflies enormously.
2. Get a good nights' sleep.
This might seem like common sense, but it is SO important to be well rested. Personally I find that I have a tendency to get a little cranky if I'm tired, and that's not what I want a potential employer or my supervisor to see on my first day! This might mean skipping something fun the night before, but at the end of the day we all have to decide what our priorities are. I was in bed by 9pm the night before my first day at PTT!
3. Arrive early
This goes hand-in-hand with getting a good nights' sleep - if you've managed to get to bed early, you'll have more chance of waking up the first time the alarm goes off instead of pressing 'snooze'. Nothing makes a worse first impression than arriving late. It's an easy way to make you supervisor think you are lazy and uninterested! In the world of theatre, if you aren't fifteen minutes early for rehearsal, you are considered to be late, so even being 'on time' isn't enough. And consider this: when you arrive late, subconsciously you are saying to the person you kept waiting that your time is more important than theirs - is that really how you want your supervisor/future employer/person marking your work to feel??
4. Take a deep breath
This tip is the simplest to implement, but a really important one to remember. When I get nervous, I have a tendency to race my speech and end up blurting out whatever pops into my head at an unintelligible speed. The best way I've found to combat this is simply to stop and take a deep breath. This usually gives me enough time to slow down and gather my thoughts so that I stop myself from saying anything unnecessary.

At the end of the day, nerves are a very personal thing, and some people deal with them better than others. My parting advice would be to try some of these tips for yourself, as well as anything else that keeps you calm, and figure out which works best for you. Maybe you perform better after a run first thing in the morning - something to burn off all that nervous energy. Maybe you need to have a leisurely breakfast in order to plan your morning so that you're ready to face the day. Or maybe you're like me, and you just need a few minutes to collect your thoughts and take a couple of deep breaths. Whatever method works for you, once you've found it, make sure you don't forget it! Nerves are designed to make our bodies function more effectively, and they can be extremely useful once you've learned how to manage them. Good luck!