The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 264 You Don't Need More Time - How To Perform Under Pressure When Preparation Feels Impossible

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger podcast. This is episode 264. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger podcast, where we dive into the world of mindful music making, peak performance, and crafting a purpose-driven life and career. I'm your host, violinist, certified performance and life coach for musicians, and your guide to unlocking your full potential, Dr. Ranipo Gautier. Hi everyone, welcome back. I hope you're doing great. Quick thing before we dive in, if you haven't heard yet, the Music Mastery Experience is open. MME is my signature year-long coaching program where we work on all three pillars of peak performance. How you practice, how you condition yourself for performance, and how you manage your mind

Starting point is 00:00:52 when it matters most. If you have big dreams for your playing, for your career, and you want the tools, the system, and the support to actually get there, this is it. Head over to mindoverfinger.com slash MME to learn more and book your free clarity call today. Okay, today's episode is, I think, going to be short. It's going to be direct, and I think it's going to be really useful, not just for auditions, but for any high stakes performance situation for you. If you've listened to episode 263, my Lyric Opera Audition Story, you heard me talk a lot about process, about having 90 days, a plan, a system, a why, and a who. And I hope it was inspiring. I got a lot of great feedback from that episode. So thank you to anyone who reached out. But I

Starting point is 00:01:50 also know that some of you listened to that and thought, that's great, Renee, but I don't have 90 days. I have three weeks or two or less. And I hear this a lot. And a client of mine reached out recently facing exactly this situation. She had just received the list for an audition that she really wanted to take that was four weeks out. And it was a completely different list from what she had expected. She didn't know a single excerpt on it, not one. And she was wondering how she could tackle it, how she could make it happen. So I sent her a voice message, kind of what I do with clients, one of those long from the heart voice messages where I just start talking. I don't stop until I've said everything I need to say. And when I listened back to it, I thought this needs to be

Starting point is 00:02:46 on the podcast, because I think a lot of you are in this situation, or will be, not just for auditions, but for any performance where you feel like you didn't have enough time, enough preparation, enough of whatever you think you needed. So today I'm going to share with you what I told her, and I want you to hear this not as audition advice, but as a way of thinking about any situation where the circumstances aren't exactly what you would have chosen. Here's the first thing I want you to hear, and it's the most important thing I'm going to say today. You must decide that everything about this situation is good for you. And I mean that literally. It's a decision. You decide that everything about this situation is

Starting point is 00:03:41 good for you. Not in a toxic, positive way. That doesn't work. It's not, just smile. It's gonna be fine. You're gonna be great. It's not what I mean at all. I mean, it's a decision. You decide ahead of time that this situation is good for you. And from that decision, everything follows. Because here's what happens when you don't make that decision. You spend energy on wishing things were different. At first, that's what my client was doing. Four weeks, a new list, not a single excerpt she knew. And that first thing her brain did was tell her it wasn't enough. That she should have had more time. That the list should have been different. And all of that energy, every minute spent in that resistance was a minute she wasn't spending learning the music.

Starting point is 00:04:41 And when you're in that space, you practice with reservations. There's a part of you that's dragging its feet. You're thinking, this isn't ideal. This isn't what I would have chosen. This isn't enough time. And that creates resistance. And that resistance creates chaos. It creates hesitation. It slows you down. It creates doubt at the exact moment when you need clarity and momentum. And here's the science behind why this matters. And there is science. There's a great body of research on what psychologists call psychology flexibility. That's the ability to accept a situation and commit to action despite the discomfort. You're rooted in the present moment and your core values and you're rooted in your who and you adapt through this. And the data

Starting point is 00:05:39 shows that people who practice acceptance outperform those who resist. Not because acceptance lowers standards, but because resistance consumes cognitive resources that you really need for the task. So every moment you span fighting the reality of your situation is a moment your brain isn't spending on the music. You've heard me say this before on the podcast, one of my favorite quotes from Byron Katie. When you fight reality, you lose, but only every time. So you have to decide. Did I say it enough? You have to decide, okay? So let's actually look at the evidence, why this is actually good for you. Because I don't want you to just repeat a mantra. I want you to genuinely see why a short, imperfect preparation is actually good for you. Let's

Starting point is 00:06:39 look at things that could be true. Learning a new list, that's good for you. That's expanding your repertoire. That's making you a more complete player. The excerpt you're learning under pressure right now, you're going to have it forever. It's making you resourceful. It's showing you what you're capable of under pressure. It's creating urgency. And urgency, within reason, within reason, actually sharpens focus. And there's research on this too. The Yerkes-Dodson curve, which we've talked about on this podcast before, shows that moderate pressure improves performance. So urgency is not your enemy. It can be your fuel if you choose to see it this way. It's all about what you decide, which angle you decide to look at things from. So as I said, my client had to learn

Starting point is 00:07:33 this entire new list in four weeks, every single excerpt from scratch. And yes, that's hard. But think about what that actually means. She now knows repertoire she didn't know before. She learned it under pressure, which means it's going to stick. She proved to herself that she can do hard things fast. And playing with less preparation than you like, that's showing you where your floor is. And I'll tell you something, your floor is probably higher than you think. and if it's not this is something you can aim to work for but the work you've done over years of playing doesn't disappear because you had three weeks instead of three months it's in your body it's in your hands it's in your ears so short preparation doesn't erase your foundation

Starting point is 00:08:24 it just asks you to trust it here's another way to see it you're getting creative about how to fit practice into a busy life. That's a skill. You get to practice it. Listen to recordings in the car. You're doing score study while you walk on the treadmill. You find 20 minutes you didn't think you had. And the musician who can work under any conditions is a different kind of player than the one who can only perform when everything is perfect. You're becoming that musician right now. That is the kind of musician you want to be. A reliable, strong musician. You're being pushed outside of your comfort zone? That's amazing. That's where growth

Starting point is 00:09:12 actually happens. Research consistently shows that we develop the most when we're operating at the edge of our current capacity, not safely inside of it. I think many of you must have heard of Anders Ericsson, who spent decades studying elite performers. If you've read any of these books behind me, The Talent Code, Talent is Overrated, and The Confident Mind, you've heard about Anders Ericsson. So Ericsson found that deliberate practice in exactly that zone is what separates good from great. This preparation is putting you there whether you planned it or not. And the hard moments, the frustration, the feeling that there isn't enough time, the having to figure it out anyway, that's building grit, resilience, the kind of inner

Starting point is 00:10:11 toughness that shows up in the room when you need it most. And you can't buy that. You can only earn it. And you're earning it right now. the challenges that you face in this process the problem solving the creativity the prioritization figuring out how to make it work with the time you have all of that that's making you better not just for this audition or for this performance for the next one and the one after that so regardless of the outcome you're growing in every single way you're growing every single minute you spend on this. And that's not nothing. That's everything. Okay, so you've made the decision, right? You know that it's a decision. Now what? How do you make it work? Let's start

Starting point is 00:11:07 with something I talked about in the last episode that applies just as much here, maybe even more. your why and your who. So when the timeline's short and the pressure is high, your why is what keeps you moving. Not, I hope this goes well, but a deep, clear, specific reason you're doing this. Why does this mean to you? Why does walking into that room and giving everything you have says about you, about who you are as a musician. Get rooted in that. Write it down. Come back to it every single day. And your who, the person you're choosing to be through this preparation matters just as much. Are you being the musician who shows up with determination and creativity when it's hard? Or are you letting the circumstances decide who you're going to be?

Starting point is 00:12:03 you get to choose and when you choose deliberately everything about how you practice everything about how you think and how you recover from hard sessions everything changes one more thing all of this the urgency the problem solving the showing up needs to be done with self-compassion and self-respect high standards and kindness toward yourself are not opposites. You're not going to bully yourself into a great performance. You're going to prepare with discipline and treat yourself with care at the same time. And that, my friend, is not softness. That's strategy. Because all the research on self-compassion in performance setting is very clear. Athletes and performers who approach challenges with

Starting point is 00:13:03 self-compassion, self-respect, are more resilient, more consistent, and more likely to try again after a setback. So be rigorous, be disciplined, and be kind, both at the same time. now let's talk logistics first i would say prioritize ruthlessly play through everything and identify what needs the most work and what needs less and spend your time accordingly this is not the moment for equal attention to everything this is triage this is the emergency room. Second, get into a performance mode as fast as possible. Record yourself, play for other people. Don't wait until you feel ready because that moment might not come at all. The sooner you start performing it, the sooner your nervous system learns that it can handle this. Again,

Starting point is 00:14:07 I'm going to bring research into it. The research on performance anxiety consistently shows that exposure, actually doing the thing, not just preparing for it, is one of the most effective ways to build confidence and reduce fear. And this is crucial in my preparation. And this is something I talk a lot about with clients. Third, protect your energy. This is a sprint, not a marathon. Ask for help at home. Cut what doesn't need to be there this month. Sleep. Eat well. Your nervous system is your instrument and right now it needs to be in the best shape possible. All right, so manage your energy. And fourth, and this is the one that ties it all together, is keep coming back to the decision. Every time you feel the doubt creeping in,

Starting point is 00:15:05 every time you catch yourself thinking this isn't enough, come back to the decision. This is so good for me. Ask yourself, how is this good for me? And let your brain find the answer because it will. All right. So here's what I want you to take from today. The situation is what it is. You can't change the timeline. In the case of my client, you can't change the list. You can't change the circumstances that brought you here. But what you can change, what you must change, if you want any of this to work, is your relationship to those circumstances. When you decide, when you intentionally make the decision that everything

Starting point is 00:15:54 about this situation is good for you, that it's working for you, something shifts. You stop fighting. You start moving. And when you're moving, when you're present, purposeful, and you're rooted in this belief that this is worth doing, even the short, imperfect preparation becomes something you can be proud of. And it makes a difference. Every single session, every single day, it makes a difference. And here's what I want you to consider. What if every performance situation, the ones you're ready for, the ones you're not, felt like something you could handle? And not because you always have a perfect preparation, but because you know yourself so well and you trust your process so completely that you walk in ready regardless.

Starting point is 00:16:50 that's what preparation with the right system actually builds and that's what the music master experience is it's a full year of working with me where you build that system for yourself not just for one audition for your whole career and for your life because the tools transfer everywhere. And right now you might be scrambling. You might be in that place where you're doing your best with what you have and you're hoping it's enough. And I want you to know it can feel different than this. Not easier necessarily, but cleaner, more purposeful, more you. so head over to mindoverfinger.com slash mme and book your free clarity call with me right now we're going to talk about where you are what you're working toward and whether this is your

Starting point is 00:17:52 next step i would love to meet you there all right this ended up not being so short but this is what i have for you today i hope it's helpful i send you much love and i say a bientot © transcript Emily Beynon

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 264 You Don't Need More Time - How To Perform Under Pressure When Preparation Feels Impossible

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