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Hi Cody,
This is a fascinating account of your experience with performance anxiety and how you’ve gone about making adjustments to your preparation to address these specific issues in advance of the next performance. I really enjoyed reading it and hearing how you’ve treated this like almost like a science experiment with yourself as the subject.
I think the goal of performing once a month is terrific – and I think you’re already doing this, but to think of each performance not as a test, but as an experiment of the practice and performance strategies that you’ve incorporated into your preparation the last month. You might even consider doing weekly run-throughs or mini-performances of some kind to gauge progress if you feel that would help you make smaller adjustments between monthly performances.
And as you’re doing, taking small incremental steps from one month to the next is ideal for building confidence. Not so small that they feel too easy, but not so big a leap that it feels like you might be getting way too far out of your comfort zone either. And then building on each success from month to month. Your description of how you were nervous in this most recent performance but managed things better and performed more successfully is a perfect description of the goal. To realize that things are always going to be slightly different than we planned, but knowing you are prepared to handle anything that might come up is an incredibly empowering feeling.
I’m looking forward to reading your continued progress!
Noa
