Читать книгу Power Cues - Nick Morgan - Страница 29

Once you’ve completed this first step, becoming more aware of how you inhabit space nonjudgmentally, then it’s time to begin to analyze your own body language more closely and definitively. Try it this way first. Ask yourself, am I a confident person? Note how many times you’ve rated yourself as nervous or self-conscious in your diary: any time you’re behaving less than optimally because the pressure is on you in some way or you feel like you’re performing.

Performance anxiety is probably the most common social fear that humans have. But people experience widely different degrees of this anxiety, and it’s good to get a sense of where you are along the spectrum of normal behavior. Do you get nervous for most meetings or only the ones where something important is at stake? Do you get butterflies when you have to present to a team of six people or fewer, or only when you’re presenting to a hundred people or more? Do you get nervous just for the first few minutes of your presentation or does your heart hammer for the whole session?

It’s common to begin a presentation with butterflies in your stomach. Most people settle down after a few minutes; if you stay nervous for all or most of your talk, then you’ve got above-average anxiety. Similarly, if you get nervous even for routine meetings with small groups, then you’ve got above-average anxiety. It’s normal to experience some nervousness for high-stakes meetings and large, special gatherings, but you’re at the high end of the anxiety range if you get nerves when the stakes are lower and the numbers modest.