Confidence and improv

This post is going to be a personal and vulnerable one. I hope it’s not indulgent: I’m sharing it in the hopes it might help someone else.

Even though I have been improvising since 2012 and I teach others how to become confident enough to improvise on stage, I still often struggle with my own confidence as an improviser. I’m not proud of this: it’s not cute, it’s not charming. It gets in the way and it is sometimes a burden to my teammates, and it’s got worse since I’ve had children and feel less connected to the London improv scene.

So why might someone experience a lack of confidence when it comes to improv?

There are a few things that spring to mind immediately. Firstly, when starting out, it might be a new experience for us to share ourselves and our ideas in an unfiltered way. If we have had negative life experiences that have shown us it is unsafe to express ourselves freely, there is even more work to do (by the individual and the collective) to reach a point of psychological safety. Perhaps even the idea of being perceived and heard, although a natural human desire, feels scary and alien. I am a perfectionist and a control freak, so the prospect of putting myself out there and making mistakes publicly is inherently terrifying, although it has also been hugely beneficial for me to do so.

In a previous post I referenced a video in which Alain de Botton argues that building confidence comes from making peace with one’s own ridiculousness. I like this theory a lot, and I’m getting a refresher on enjoying my own stupidity by taking a clownprov course at the moment (will report back anon); however, it doesn’t cover the entire experience for me. I don’t feel that my self-doubt comes only from worrying I will lose dignity. There’s also Ira Glass’s brilliant advice about the creative process. He says that anyone pursuing a creative venture will experience a a gap where they know the stuff they’re making falls short of the stuff they like, so they quit. If we are constantly comparing our work to others’, particularly if they have more experience, this could definitely contribute to low confidence.

I listened to a podcast recently that has helped me unpick confidence further. The guest, Dr Oliver Twizell (great name) works with a lot of sportspeople, and breaks confidence down into three components: self-efficacy, self-worth and self-esteem. Here’s how I understood each part and how I would apply it to improv:

1. Self-efficacy: this is our belief in our capability in a certain context. For improv, high self-efficacy could sound like “I’m sure whatever happens, I’ll be fine”, or “I can play with anyone”. It could mean feeling relaxed about details like exactly what the format is, how well you know the other players or what the style of the show will be. You trust your capability to meet the moment and play. Low self-efficacy could sound like “I’m worried that if X or Y happens, I’ll panic”, or “I don’t know if I understand the format and I might mess it up” etc etc.
2. Self-worth: this is our internal sense of our own value, regardless of skill or success. It is pretty stable and does not get fundamentally impacted by external events. In improv, high self-worth could mean that even if we have a bad scene or show, we know we’re unchanged because our performance is not us. It could also mean that when faced with performing alongside more experienced players, we feel secure because we know that, although we are at a different stage in our journeys, we also matter. This extends into knowing we have a voice in the room and advocating for personal boundaries and needs. Low self-worth in improv, however, could look like overly negative self-talk before or after a show (before — doubting whether we deserve to be there and after — picking apart any “wrong” moves). We probably place too much emphasis on how well we perform as evidence of our worth.
3. Self-esteem: this is more externally focused, and relates to our belief in our value in the world, in other words: our role and contributions. In improv, high self-esteem could look like knowing our personal strengths as a player and believing that we bring something unique. Low self-esteem could look like not being convinced we have anything of value to contribute to a scene or show, and even that someone else would have done it better.

Even writing these descriptions out has been a tad painful as it’s made me assess where I am at the moment. It’s possible to “score” higher in one ahead of confidence than another, but I feel fairly low on all counts at the moment. I have experienced higher self-efficacy than I currently have, and I think this has to do with frequency of getting reps in. I always have a higher level of self-efficacy after an improv festival or intensive, but in my daily life (outside of a major improv hub and being primary caregiver to two children) I can go for weeks or even months between performances, and the gaps make me question my ability to handle anything when I do get the opportunity, as I am not naturally in a position to maintain match fitness.

Scoring myself on self-esteem and self-worth is interesting. The trouble is, if self-worth is low, external feedback — even appreciative laughter or applause — doesn’t stick. I have had plenty of positive comments on my performances (which temporarily boost my self-esteem) but I think until I build up my self-worth, the impact won’t last. I am reminded of this quote from psychotherapist Anna Mathur, which I love: “your worth never changed, your understanding of it did”. We have inherent worth – we matter – regardless of our skill or performance on a particular day.

Mathur writes a lot about motherhood, because this transformative and complex experience impacts us in various ways, including sometimes knocking our confidence. Motherhood has boosted my confidence in many areas, but it’s definitely knocked it in relation to improv. I currently feel out of step with my improv peers: in place of cultural things, socialising and travelling, my life consists of soft play, messy chaos and the beautiful but extraordinarily demanding responsibility of raising humans. In a low mood on show day last week, my self-talk became “you don’t belong in a team with all those other artists; you’re just a suburban mum”. Ouch.

In writing this post, I’ve realised that the part of confidence I need to work on most is self-worth, as it’s the one that is most internal and ought to be most stable and not based on how often I perform or how well. Improv can be part of our identity, but our self-worth must not be linked to how frequently or how well we are performing. I owe it to myself — and my teammates — to do this work, because I want to embody what I teach, and to be able to fully enjoy this art form without the crippling self doubt that often creeps in and needing to counteract this with validation. It’s also just very boring to be so hung up on oneself, when there are so many things to discover and be curious about, out in the world. It’s a work in progress and won’t be an easy task, but maybe one day I will report back…let me know if any of this resonates, and how you’ve worked on your own improv confidence.