Lauren Bonvini on Building Confidence When Performance Anxiety Takes Over

A practical way to work through pressure, calm self-doubt, and stay connected to your voice

Lauren Bonvini

Lauren Bonvini is a Seattle-based stage fright coach who helps performers, speakers, and creatives work through performance anxiety and build confidence, presence, and self-trust. Performance anxiety can make even familiar situations feel difficult. A presentation, a meeting, a performance, or a moment of public expression can suddenly feel much bigger once pressure enters the picture.

What makes performance anxiety especially frustrating is that it often affects people who are fully capable. Someone may know their material, understand their message, and care deeply about doing well, yet still find themselves dealing with tension, racing thoughts, and self-consciousness the moment attention turns toward them. The problem is not always a lack of skill. More often, it is the way pressure changes the experience.

For many people, the instinct is to treat performance anxiety like an enemy that has to be eliminated before they can feel confident. But that approach usually creates more frustration. A better path is learning how to understand anxiety, work with it, and keep showing up even when some discomfort is present.

Why Performance Anxiety Feels So Strong

Performance anxiety is not just about nerves. It is often connected to visibility, pressure, and the fear of being judged. When other people are watching, listening, or evaluating, the mind and body can interpret that situation as risky. Even if there is no real threat, the nervous system can respond as if something important is at stake.

That response can look like:

• faster breathing
• a racing heart
• muscle tension
• difficulty concentrating
• a shaky voice
• the sense that your mind is suddenly harder to access

At the same time, anxious thoughts often appear:

• What if I mess up?
• What if I freeze?
• What if people can tell I am nervous?
• What if I cannot recover?

This combination of physical activation and fear-based thinking can make the moment feel much more intense than it really is. It can also make people assume something is wrong with them, when in reality they are experiencing a very common reaction to pressure.

The Difference Between Anxiety and Ability

One of the most important things to understand is that anxiety does not define ability. Many people with performance anxiety are thoughtful, talented, intelligent, and fully prepared. They are not struggling because they have nothing to offer. They are struggling because pressure interferes with access to what they already know.

This distinction matters. If someone believes their anxiety means they are incapable, they often become more self-critical and avoidant. If they understand that anxiety is disrupting performance but not defining potential, the experience becomes easier to work with.

That shift changes the question from: “Why am I like this?”

to: “How do I support myself better under pressure?”

That is a much more useful place to begin.

Why Trying to Feel Perfect Makes It Worse

A lot of performance anxiety is intensified by perfectionism. People often believe they need to feel completely calm, fully confident, and perfectly in control before they can speak or perform well. So the moment nerves show up, they interpret that as failure.

This creates a second layer of fear. Instead of only managing the original situation, they also start reacting to the fact that they are anxious. They become nervous about being nervous.

The more someone tries to force themselves into a perfect state, the more pressure they create. They monitor their voice, their body, their words, and every possible sign that they might be slipping. This kind of self-monitoring pulls attention away from communication and makes it harder to stay present.

A more effective approach is to stop using perfect calm as the standard. Confidence does not mean feeling flawless. Confidence means being able to stay connected to yourself and your message even when some nerves are present.

A More Practical Way to Build Confidence

Confidence is not something that suddenly appears. It is something people build through repetition, reflection, and self-trust. That means a practical approach matters far more than waiting for the perfect feeling.

Prepare for clarity, not control

Preparation is useful, but it works best when it creates familiarity rather than rigidity. Focus on your core message, your structure, and the main points you want to communicate. Know where you are going, but do not pressure yourself to control every word.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is steadiness.

Shift attention outward

Performance anxiety often gets stronger when attention turns inward. A person starts asking:

• How do I sound?
• Do I look nervous?
• Am I doing this right?

These questions increase pressure. A better focus is:

• What do I want people to understand?
• What matters most in this moment?
• How can I connect clearly?

Shifting attention toward communication reduces self-consciousness and helps people stay grounded in purpose.

Support the body

Because anxiety is physical, the body needs support too. Slowing the breath, relaxing the shoulders, softening the jaw, and feeling both feet on the ground can all help reduce intensity. These actions do not erase anxiety instantly, but they make it easier to stay present.

Simple physical support often helps more than people expect.

Reframe what anxiety means

A powerful shift happens when people stop treating anxiety as proof that something is wrong. Anxiety often means the moment matters. It means there is pressure, vulnerability, or importance attached to what is happening.

That does not make the experience comfortable, but it does make it understandable. When anxiety becomes something to work with instead of something to fear, confidence becomes much easier to build.

Confidence Comes Through Repetition

Many people want a single breakthrough moment that eliminates performance anxiety forever. Usually, progress happens differently. Confidence is built through smaller, repeated experiences that teach the mind and body something new.

That might mean:

• speaking up more often in meetings
• practicing in front of one trusted person
• recording yourself and watching with less judgment
• taking smaller opportunities to be visible
• allowing yourself to improve through experience

Each repetition creates evidence. You begin to learn that you can feel pressure and still function. You can feel visible and still communicate. You can be imperfect and still effective.

This is where self-trust starts to grow.

The Role of Self-Trust

At the center of lasting confidence is self-trust. Self-trust means believing that you can handle discomfort, recover from mistakes, and continue even when the moment does not unfold perfectly. It means not abandoning yourself the second something feels difficult.

People with stronger self-trust are not necessarily fearless. They simply know that nerves do not have to end the experience. They trust themselves to keep going.

That kind of confidence is much more durable than surface-level confidence because it is built on experience rather than image.

Final Thoughts

Performance anxiety does not mean you are not capable. It means pressure is affecting how you feel in the moment. Once that becomes clear, the path forward becomes clearer too. You do not need to eliminate every nerve in order to show up effectively. You need a more supportive way of preparing, a steadier way of interpreting what you feel, and a willingness to build confidence through real experience.

Lauren Bonvini is a Seattle-based stage fright coach who helps performers, speakers, and creatives work through performance anxiety and build confidence, presence, and self-trust. To learn more about Lauren Bonvini and her work, visit her **main site**.