Heart racing before a talk? Call it excitement.
A 1 minute reframe
You are about to speak. It might be a talk, a meeting or a call you cannot skip. Your heart is fast. Your hands feel cold. A voice in your head says: I am nervous, this will go badly.
Most of us call that feeling fear. This small experiment tries another name for it. It takes one minute.
Step 1. Feel your body. Do not fight it.
Stand or sit. Put a hand on your chest if you like. Notice the fast heart and the tight stomach. Do not tell your body to calm down. Just notice it for about ten seconds.
What to expect: staying with the feeling can seem odd, because we usually push it away. That is fine.
Step 2. Say it out loud: I am excited. This is energy.
Out loud, not only in your head. You can whisper it. Say it once or twice.
What to expect: it may sound a little silly. Say it anyway. It is a small experiment, not a magic word.
Step 3. Write the one thing you want to show them.
One sentence. Not everything you know. Just the one thing you want them to see.
What to expect: your energy now has somewhere to go.
Try it today
Pick your next talk, meeting or call. One minute before it, do the three steps. Then write down 3 lines: the time, the sentence you said, and the one thing you wanted to show them. After it, add one more line: what happened. Total time: 1 minute before, 1 minute after.
Why it may help
In one study, people who said "I am excited" out loud felt more excited. A later study repeated that result for how people felt. In human words: you give the feeling a name that points toward the moment, not away from it. It may help you approach the moment with a more useful mindset.
The honest part: in the later study, observers did not rate the talk as better. It may change how you read the feeling. It does not remove it.
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