Singing Sense: Coaching for Performers

That feeling when you walk into an audition having prepared the same sixteen bars in a felt hundred different ways. Just in case you lose your nerve or the room feels weird or…

But more prep doesn’t always help, it often just means more places for your attention to go and zapping it in the process. Some brains and/or neurotypes aren’t less capable under pressure, but they sure run different from what the “breathe and visualise” advice assumes.

Newsletter’s already in inboxes, or you can read via the link in the comments/bio if you want the rest of it (including what might actually help).

There is feedback that changes the work and feedback that only changes how you feel about yourself. But often that’s not just about how someone gives us feedback, but rather about what we hear, because the first thing that happens when feedback arrives isn’t necessarily understanding. It’s often “threat assessment”. Your nervous system is way ahead of your thinking on this.

Full article in your inbox or link to read in bio/comments…

At some point creatives need to stop thinking of asking for help as an admission of weakness and start to see it as a professional decision.

Full essay in inboxes (or link in comments/bio).

The unfinished pile isn’t necessarily a productivity problem. Very often, it can be about the stuff that felt too important to risk getting wrong.

Link to full essay in bio/comments…

Your body is logging everything your mind is trying to skip past, and performers are both very good at knowing AND ignoring this.

And if you wonder what that means: Full link in bio/comments.

At some point, doing well becomes its own reason not to ask for help. It’s not always about the creatives who are visibly struggling…

Full essay via comments/link in bio.

Caring about the work and being afraid of it aren’t always opposites. For some creatives, they can feel like the same thing because their identity becomes fused to their work.

I wrote a bit more about it in this week’s newsletter, link in bio/comments…

The tortured artist myth isn’t romantic. It becomes a reason not to ask for help very quickly, and we’ve had it backwards for long enough.

I’ve written about it in more detail this week, link in bio/comments.

If you never finish, it can never fail, and your nervous system knows this. It’s trying to protect you by pretending it’s about your standards when it’s truly about not having to find out what happens on the other side…

I wrote an article about it this week that might be worth reading if perfectionism is a recurring theme for you (link in comments/bio).