Move past your performance anxiety demons
Performance anxiety often appears pre-portrait Session.
Before your last portrait session, how were you feeling?
Were you excited? Nervous? Or, were you freaking out like you were about to schedule open heart surgery?
For many of my clients, standing in front of a camera is not only awkward, but, it’s the most painful activity they have to do for their businesses.
And I get it.
Due to an extremely poor self-image, I hated cameras of all shapes and sizes for the first 20+ years of my life and made it a mission to avoid them at all costs.
My performance anxiety was embarrassingly through the roof.
Staring at hundreds of high-resolution photos of yourself where every pore is in sharp focus can be an intimidating and all-too-real process that leads to an fear-based reaction to just put the session off until a later date.
Or, skip it altogether.
For some of my clients, the thought of creating a high-volume, image library excites the negative self-talk in their minds, and performance anxiety is how that talk is manifested.
I get that, too.
But, rather than avoiding a critical component of your marketing outreach, re-framing the experience by shifting to a more growth - and accurate - mindset will help alleviate many of those misgivings about your appearance.
Before my sessions with anxious clients, I often prime them with this thought to keep in mind as the performance anxiety starts to creep in:
You are in business to help people who need your expertise and thought leadership. The only way that these people will even know you exist is by consistently creating content for your social feeds. Words alone are effective, sure, but they only go so far. By including portraits that compliment your words of hope and inspiration, you are attaching a face to your thought leadership, which only serves to endear you more to those potential clients.
Your messaging will resonate more when they can connect visually with the person who is sharing it. They’re able to look you in the eye digitally, and that is a powerful tool at your disposal.
So, rather than viewing your portrait session as a funeral, treat it more like a celebration - a celebration that you are in an enviable position to help those who are desperate for your expertise, and want to discover reasons to love and trust you even more.
Don’t hold back when people are waiting for your greatness to help them get to where they want to be with their lives.
Have you had performance anxiety issues with being in front of the camera in the past? How did you get past your self-defeating thoughts?
Please share in the comment section below.
Also, please share this article with someone who you think will benefit from reading it, :)
PS - For those of you who aren’t in the know, I mail out these blogs 3x a week, and lemme tell you, they’re a real party, so, if you’d like to get in on this, sign up for it here and I’ll throw in a free gift for you...because I care, :)