09/06/2026
Overcome fear of performance in acting
How to train your brain to be fearless while acting
Many of you are inherently talented and skilled in acting but are not able to explore it because you are scared to perform in front of others. You may give any number of excuses but you know it within yourself that you are just scared when it comes to performing or acting a scene in front of others.
You cannot let such fear stop you from exploring your inherent talent of acting. It is crucial to get rid of this fear as this fear might be the only roadblock between you and your destiny to be a well-known actor.
You are not the only one who is scared to perform in front of others. Most of the people are scared to perform, speak or even stand in front of the audience. Those who claim not to be scared of public performance are just lying or pretending to be fearless. Even professional movie actors are fearful the first day on the set of their new movie. Hence such fear is nothing abnormal.
This article will help you remove the fear of acting or performing in front of others and will enable you to fully explore and showcase your talent to everyone.
What causes the fear of performance in acting?
To start with, it is important that you accept that you are scared or fearful of performing or acting in front of others. Let go your pride or ego of falsely claiming yourself to be fearless. Every human has the emotion of fear. There is no one born on this planet earth who do not fear. So let’s be humble to accept that we all get scared to perform in front of others.
Now let’s analyze the four main causes of fear while acting or performing publicly as given below:
Fear of judgment: You start thinking, what others will think about you. How others will judge you. Your brain then believes that everyone out there will judge you negatively. Hence you get convinced not to act or perform in front of others.
Scared to make fool out of yourself: As you have self-respect or self-esteem and you do not want to risk it. You believe that you might make a fool out of yourself if you try to perform. You do not wish to lose your respect in front of others. Hence you do not want to take such risk.
You know that you will fail: Even before you try to perform, you feel and know that you are going to fail. Hence your brain stops you from performing as it does not want you to fail at all.
You are not confident on your acting craft: You do not know how to start or end the scene or how will you act it out. You have not practiced enough or do not have the required knowledge or hold on the craft of acting. Hence you decide not to perform.
How to overcome the fear of performance in acting?
In the following paragraph, I am sharing with you certain information which I would want you to have a belief in. Read it several times, understand it, practice it and stick to it, if you wish to get rid of the fear of performance once and for all.
Don’t become the prisoner of others: When you think of how others will judge you, you start behaving and doing things in life, which is in conformity to others. In a way, you start living a life which others approve of. You become a prisoner of others, as you cannot do anything which people do not approve of. Break this prison. Do things which you feel like to do. Let others judge you negatively. Their negative opinion or judgements cannot stop from doing what you want to do. Feed this idea in your mind and it will stop your mind from thinking ‘what people will say’ or how they will judge you.
Do not take yourself too seriously: Many people much bigger, richer, talented and respected than you have walked this planet. Whatever position you are at present, do not take yourself too seriously or hold yourself mentally at some elevated position. You trying to treat yourself as someone highly respected is stopping you from being you. The true you want to jump, perform, act and do crazy or creative things. That’s truly you. Come down from that elevated position and be yourself. You will enjoy your life more. Go out and perform. There is no shame in being you. Once people will see your true personality, they will like you more.
If you believe you will fail, you are right: Before your performance, if you believe or start feeling that you will fail, your mind will listen to you and it will make it happen. Your mind just awaits your orders and it tries to achieve what you believe in. What if, you believe or tell your mind that you will perform great. Your mind will still listen to you and will try to achieve that too. So before any performance believe that you will perform great. This belief will give you enough confidence and you will surely perform better. Try it out. It works all the time.
Train, train and train: If you want to truly perform confidently, train yourself in acting. If you cannot join a physical acting school, train at home.
Composed by
Director Okocha Awam Emmanuel (ANMD)
