How Can Mindfulness ENHANCE Your PERFORMANCE?

What is all the buzz about mindfulness or incorporating this into your daily routine as an instrument to enhance your speaking and singing performance? Why would you need to even be aware of this practice as a singer or speaker? Is it really of value and should you be putting this into that basket of tools to make you an even better speaker, singer or performer?

The answer to the above questions is a resounding YES. Before we look at the benefits, what is mindfulness? Mindfulness or being mindful is ‘being deliberately aware of your body, mind, feelings in the present moment, creating a feeling of calm.’ Think about that for just a moment.

Mindfulness

If you were in tune with mind, body, soul at the time you were to perform, what kind of performance would you give? You would be focused, non-judgmental, non-critical and completely in the moment and one with yourself and your audience. I have no doubt your performance would be a knock-out.

For you to be able to connect and give a skilled performance you need to be aware of not only your own state of mind, but also your audiences. Being mindfully aware of your mindset and focus will allow you to be more driven, entertaining, conscious, and creative.

So how can you achieve this to better your performance?

Here are a few exercises to help you be more mindful in your day to day life, this will then filter into your performing life.

Be aware of who you are, your strengths and weaknesses. Do not be critical or judgmental, just be accepting and aware. Let the feelings come, acknowledge them, and then let those feelings go. Treat yourself as you would a loving member of your family. Stop striving to be someone you are not. You are enough. Slow down and take in what is around you, sights, smells, noises, be completely at one with your surroundings.

Learn to live in the now. Not in the past, not in the future, but now. All we have is the present moment. By doing this, you will begin to appreciate what you have and bring into focus what is or is not important.

Be aware of your breathing. We have talked about the importance of breathing in my blog ‘Let’s talk breathing’. Draw your attention to how you are breathing. Are you breathing deep into your belly or shallow and into your chest? Are your shoulders relaxed or tense? Learn to slow your breathing down and benefit for more energy and focus.

Incorporate a mindfulness meditation practice into your daily/weekly routine. There are plenty of examples of this on the internet and the benefits will soon be noticed.

Being mindful is being aware and focused, but in a non-judgmental, non- critical way. It improves your cognitive performance; it allows you to be more creative and confident. It heightens your mind/body connection creating a cohesiveness between what is happening in your mind and body.

Introducing a mindfulness practice into your daily routine will allow you to concentrate on the performance and not let niggling self-doubt and worry enter the equation. It will allow you to let go of your insecurities (let’s face we all have some sort of fear, not being good enough, people not liking our content, not feeling as good as everyone else) feelings of limitations and gives you the space and freedom to be more expressive and creative.

A mindfulness practice is a powerful tool to have to help you become the best performer you can be. As a speaker, artist, dancer, actor, singer. We so often believe we are our thoughts; and being able to distinguish between fear of thought and reality, then letting go of what is not real gives you permission to soar to new heights.