Open Forem: Lauren

Stepping Into the Spotlight: Rethinking Stage Fright in a High-Pressure World

Lauren — Sun, 03 May 2026 11:25:37 +0000

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.

In a world where visibility is often tied to opportunity, more people than ever are being asked to speak, present, and perform. Yet stage fright remains one of the most common—and misunderstood—barriers to showing up fully in those moments.

It’s easy to assume that confidence is something you either have or don’t. But stage fright tells a different story. It reveals that confidence is not a fixed trait—it’s a trained response.

The Pressure to Perform Has Changed

Today’s “stage” isn’t limited to theaters or auditoriums. It includes Zoom calls, team meetings, social media, and public-facing roles of all kinds. The audience may look different, but the internal experience is often the same: heightened awareness, self-consciousness, and pressure to get it right.

As expectations increase, so does the intensity of performance anxiety.

But rather than viewing this as a personal limitation, it can be seen as a signal. Your system is responding to perceived importance. You care about how you show up—and that matters.

Understanding the Role of the Nervous System

Stage fright isn’t just in your head—it’s in your body.

When you’re about to perform, your nervous system activates to prepare you for action. This can feel uncomfortable, especially if you’re not used to it. But it’s not inherently negative. It’s energy.

The key is learning how to regulate that energy so it works with you instead of against you.

Simple practices like controlled breathing, slowing your pace, and grounding your posture can reduce the intensity of the response. These aren’t quick fixes—they’re trainable skills that improve with repetition.

The Trap of Overthinking

One of the biggest challenges in high-pressure moments is overthinking. You start analyzing every detail—your words, your tone, your body language—while trying to perform at the same time.

This creates a split in attention that makes everything feel harder.

A more effective approach is to simplify your focus. Instead of trying to control every variable, anchor yourself in one thing: your message. What do you want to communicate? What value are you offering?

Clarity reduces noise.

Confidence Through Exposure

Avoidance strengthens fear. Exposure weakens it.

The more you put yourself in situations where you’re seen and heard, the more your system adapts. What once felt overwhelming becomes familiar. And familiarity builds confidence.

This doesn’t mean throwing yourself into the most intimidating scenario right away. It means building gradually—starting small, then expanding your comfort zone over time.

Each step reinforces your ability to handle the next.

Moving Beyond Perfectionism

Perfectionism often disguises itself as high standards, but in performance, it can become a barrier. The desire to avoid mistakes can make you rigid, disconnected, and overly cautious.

In contrast, presence requires flexibility.

When you allow for imperfection, you create space for authenticity. You become more responsive, more engaging, and more human. And that’s what audiences connect with.

Creating Consistency in Unpredictable Moments

High-pressure situations are unpredictable by nature. But your preparation doesn’t have to be.

Developing a consistent pre-performance routine can create a sense of stability. Whether it’s a breathing exercise, a mental cue, or a physical warm-up, these rituals help center you.

They act as a bridge between preparation and performance.

A More Useful Definition of Confidence

Confidence isn’t about eliminating discomfort. It’s about expanding your capacity to handle it.

When you stop waiting to feel ready and start building the skills to navigate uncertainty, your relationship with stage fright changes. It becomes something you can manage—not something that controls you.

And that shift opens the door to more opportunities, more visibility, and more impact.

Lauren Bonvini on Training the Mind and Body to Handle Stage Fright

Lauren — Fri, 01 May 2026 13:10:51 +0000

A practical approach to performance anxiety, confidence, and staying steady when pressure rises

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 a familiar moment feel suddenly difficult. A person may know what they want to say, understand their message, and care deeply about communicating it clearly, yet still feel tension rise as soon as attention turns toward them. Speaking in front of others, performing, presenting ideas, or being seen in an important moment can bring up pressure that feels much larger than the situation itself.

This is one reason stage fright can feel so frustrating. It often affects people who are thoughtful, prepared, and capable. The issue is not always a lack of skill. More often, it is the way pressure changes how someone experiences their own ability in the moment.

The good news is that performance anxiety can become more manageable. The goal is not to erase every nerve or become completely fearless. The goal is to build a steadier relationship with pressure so that anxiety no longer controls the entire experience.

Why Performance Anxiety Feels So Strong

Performance anxiety is often connected to visibility. When someone is being watched, heard, or evaluated, the mind and body can interpret that situation as risky, even when there is no real danger.

That response can include:

faster breathing
increased heart rate
muscle tension
difficulty focusing
a shaky voice
racing thoughts

At the same time, the mind may begin asking fear-based questions:

What if I mess up?
What if I freeze?
What if people judge me?
What if I cannot recover?

This combination of physical activation and anxious thinking can make even simple communication feel difficult. A person may still have the same skills and knowledge, but anxiety interferes with access to them.

Understanding this matters because anxiety is not the same as inability. Performance anxiety can affect how someone feels in the moment, but it does not define what they are capable of doing.

Confidence Does Not Have to Come First

Many people believe they need to feel confident before they can speak, perform, or share their ideas. They wait for calm to arrive. They wait for certainty. They wait for the feeling that they are finally ready.

But confidence often develops through action, not before it.

A person becomes more confident by having experiences that show them they can handle pressure. They build self-trust by speaking, practicing, recovering, and trying again. Confidence grows when the mind and body begin to learn that discomfort does not have to stop the moment.

This is why small steps can be so important. A person does not always need one major breakthrough. Sometimes progress starts with one question asked out loud, one short practice run, one meeting contribution, or one moment of staying present instead of pulling away.

A Practical Way to Reduce the Pressure

A practical approach to stage fright focuses on what can be done before, during, and after the moment.

Prepare for clarity

Preparation should create direction, not pressure. Instead of trying to memorize every word, focus on the main message, the structure of what you want to say, and the points that matter most.

Clear preparation gives the mind something steady to return to. It also allows for more flexibility if the moment does not go exactly as planned.

Shift attention outward
Performance anxiety often becomes stronger when attention turns inward. A person starts monitoring how they sound, how they look, whether they seem nervous, and whether they are doing everything correctly.

That self-monitoring adds pressure.

A more useful focus is outward:

What do I want to communicate?
What matters most here?
How can I connect clearly?

This shift helps bring attention back to communication instead of self-protection.

Support the body

Because anxiety is physical, the body needs support too. Slowing the breath, relaxing the shoulders, softening the jaw, and feeling grounded through the feet can all help reduce the intensity of the stress response.

These actions do not have to eliminate anxiety completely. They only need to make the moment more manageable.

Reframe what anxiety means

Anxiety often feels like proof that something is wrong. But in many cases, it simply means the moment matters. It means there is visibility, pressure, or emotional importance attached to what is happening.

When anxiety is seen as activation rather than failure, it becomes easier to work with.

Why Small Wins Matter

Small wins are powerful because they create evidence. Every time someone speaks up, practices, presents, or performs in a manageable way, they give themselves proof that pressure can be handled.

Those experiences begin to change the story.
Instead of:
“I cannot do this.”
The story becomes:
“I can feel nervous and still continue.”
Instead of:
“I have to be perfect.”
The story becomes:
“I can recover and keep going.”
Over time, those small wins build self-trust. And self-trust is the foundation of lasting confidence.
For a related article on building confidence through a practical approach to stage fright, visit:
Lauren Bonvini on Building Confidence Through a More Practical Approach to Stage Fright

Letting Go of Perfection

Perfectionism can make stage fright much harder. When someone believes they need to sound flawless, appear completely calm, and avoid every mistake, the pressure becomes too heavy.

Perfectionism makes small moments feel high stakes. It also pulls attention away from the message and toward the fear of doing something wrong.

A healthier goal is presence.

Presence means staying connected to what matters. It means communicating clearly enough. It means allowing yourself to be human while still showing up with care and intention.

People often connect more with sincerity and clarity than with perfection. A person does not need to be flawless to be effective. They need to stay engaged with the moment.

Building Confidence Over Time

Confidence grows through repetition. It becomes stronger when people keep giving themselves manageable opportunities to be seen and heard.

That might include:

speaking once in a meeting
practicing in front of one trusted person
recording a short video
sharing one idea before overthinking it
taking a small speaking opportunity These actions may seem simple, but they matter. They help the mind and body learn that visibility can be practiced. They reduce the fear response over time and create a more stable sense of confidence.

The goal is not to force confidence. The goal is to build it through experience.

Final Thoughts

Performance anxiety does not mean someone is not capable. It means pressure is affecting how the moment feels. Once that becomes clear, it becomes easier to respond with patience, practice, and support.

Confidence is built through small moments of action, recovery, and self-trust. It grows when people stop waiting to feel perfect and start learning how to stay present under pressure.

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:
https://laurenbonvini.com/

Lauren Bonvini on Building Confidence Through a More Practical Approach to Stage Fright

Lauren — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:29:50 +0000

How to understand pressure, reduce self-doubt, and move through performance anxiety with more steadiness

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. For readers who want a visual companion to these ideas, Lauren Bonvini’s Stage Fright and Confidence guide on SlideShare offers another practical way to explore this topic.

Stage fright can affect people in ways that are both obvious and subtle. For some, it shows up before a presentation or performance as a rush of nerves, tension, and racing thoughts. For others, it appears more quietly as avoidance, self-doubt, overthinking, or the habit of holding back in moments where they want to speak clearly and confidently. In either case, the experience can be frustrating because it often affects people who are capable, prepared, and deeply invested in what they want to say.

One of the most difficult parts of stage fright is that it can make simple moments feel much bigger than they really are. A meeting, a creative performance, a talk, or even a conversation can start to feel loaded with pressure the moment a person becomes aware that they are being seen and heard. Suddenly, the focus shifts away from communication and toward self-protection. Instead of thinking clearly about the message, the mind becomes preoccupied with fear.

That is why a practical approach matters. Overcoming stage fright is not about becoming a completely fearless person. It is about learning how to understand what is happening, reduce the intensity of self-judgment, and build the kind of confidence that holds up under pressure.

Why Stage Fright Feels So Powerful

Stage fright is not only about speaking or performing. It is often about visibility. When people are in a situation where others are watching, listening, or evaluating, the moment can start to feel risky. The body responds quickly to that sense of pressure, even when there is no real danger.
That response can include:

faster breathing
increased heart rate
tension in the shoulders or chest
shakiness
difficulty focusing
a sense of mental blankness

At the same time, anxious thoughts often become louder:

What if I mess up?
What if I forget what I want to say?
What if people notice I am nervous?
What if I embarrass myself?

This combination of physical activation and fear-based thinking is what makes stage fright feel so overwhelming. A person may still have the same skills, experience, and ideas they had before the pressure started, but anxiety interferes with access to them.

This is important because it means stage fright does not define ability. It affects performance, but it is not proof that someone is incapable.

The Trap of Waiting to Feel Ready

A common mistake is believing that confidence should come first. Many people assume they need to feel completely calm before they can trust themselves. If they still feel anxious, they take that as a sign that they are not ready.

Unfortunately, that mindset keeps people stuck.

Confidence is rarely something that appears before experience. More often, it is built through experience. It grows when someone steps into a moment, feels the discomfort, survives it, and begins to realize that nerves do not automatically ruin performance.

Waiting to feel perfect usually increases pressure. The more someone believes they must feel confident first, the more alarming anxiety becomes when it appears. This creates a second layer of fear, where the person is no longer only responding to the speaking or performance moment. They are responding to the fact that they are anxious.

A more helpful goal is not perfect calm. It is steadiness. It is the ability to remain connected enough to yourself and your message that you can keep going, even if the moment feels uncomfortable.

A More Practical Way to Build Confidence

Confidence is often misunderstood as a personality trait. In reality, it is something that can be developed through repetition, reflection, and self-trust. A practical approach focuses on what helps people do that in real situations.

Prepare for clarity, not control
Preparation helps, but it works best when it creates familiarity rather than rigidity. Focus on the key message, the structure of what you want to say, and the points that matter most. Know where you are going, but do not make yourself dependent on saying everything perfectly.

Trying to control every word often increases anxiety. It creates the feeling that even a small shift will ruin everything. Clear preparation creates flexibility, and flexibility creates more confidence.

Shift attention outward
When stage fright rises, attention often turns inward. People start monitoring their voice, their body, their facial expressions, and every sign that they may not be doing well enough. This kind of self-monitoring adds pressure and makes it harder to stay present.

A better focus is outward:

What do I want to communicate?
What matters most right now?
How can I connect with the people in front of me? This shift helps reduce self-consciousness and brings the moment back to communication instead of self-protection.

Support the body
Because stage fright is physical, it helps to use simple physical tools. Slowing the breath, dropping the shoulders, softening the jaw, and feeling both feet on the ground can all help reduce the intensity of the body’s stress response.

These are small actions, but they are effective because they signal stability to the nervous system. They do not have to erase anxiety in order to help. They only need to make the moment a little more manageable.

Reframe what anxiety means
A lot of the suffering around stage fright comes from interpretation. People feel nervous and immediately decide that something is wrong. That interpretation adds more fear to an already stressful moment.

A more supportive view is this: anxiety often means the moment matters. It means there is visibility, vulnerability, or pressure attached to what is happening. That does not make the feeling enjoyable, but it does make it understandable.

Once anxiety is seen as activation rather than failure, it becomes much easier to work with.

Letting Go of Perfectionism

Perfectionism is one of the biggest reasons stage fright feels harder than it needs to. When someone believes they need to appear flawless in order to be effective, every moment of visibility becomes high stakes.

Perfectionism makes small mistakes feel enormous. It causes people to over-monitor themselves and disconnect from their natural voice. It also keeps them focused on what could go wrong instead of what they actually want to communicate.

In reality, people usually connect more with presence than perfection. They respond to sincerity, clarity, honesty, and conviction. A person does not need to be flawless to be compelling. They need to be present enough to communicate something real.

Letting go of perfectionism does not mean lowering standards. It means shifting toward healthier standards, ones based on connection, clarity, and recovery rather than flawless performance.

Confidence Grows Through Repetition

Most lasting confidence is built gradually. People grow stronger not because one moment suddenly changes everything, but because they keep practicing visibility in ways that stretch them without overwhelming them.

That may include:

speaking up more often in meetings
practicing in front of one trusted person
recording themselves and watching with less judgment
taking small opportunities to be seen and heard
allowing growth to happen through repetition Each of these moments creates evidence. They teach the mind and body that pressure is survivable. They show that discomfort does not mean failure. Over time, they help build self-trust.

And self-trust is the foundation of real confidence.

Final Thoughts

Stage fright does not mean you are not capable. It means pressure is affecting how the moment feels. Once that becomes clear, it becomes much easier to respond in a more constructive way. Instead of fighting yourself, you can support yourself. Instead of waiting to feel perfect, you can build confidence by practicing steadiness, improving your relationship with pressure, and learning to trust yourself more over time.

Lauren Bonvini helps performers, speakers, and creatives build that kind of confidence through a practical approach to stage fright, performance anxiety, and self-trust. For a visual resource that expands on these ideas, explore Lauren Bonvini’s Stage Fright and Confidence guide on SlideShare.