Confidence

'I can sing when i'm on my own, but singing in front of another human being? Are you kidding?'

Does this sound familiar?

When I was young, I didn't have a care in the world. I would literally do anything. Go banana boating, sure. Sing in the Royal Albert Hall in front of 5000 people, let's do it! I was known as the girl who would always give things a go no matter how scared I was. And I really lived up to that name. People often say to me how confident I look when making speeches or singing in public etc. Even when I’m not particularly feeling confident, I always make an effort to appear confident to other people so as not to come across unprofessional or clueless!

Performing is something I absolutely love, it gives me such an adrenaline rush. As I grew older and wiser, I started getting a bit more nervous when performing. I found certain situations made me more nervous, such as singing in a church. This was really because I felt so much more exposed in a church.

Learning how to control these nerves is imperative so that when you perform you look and ooze confidence.

Every time I do something that makes me nervous, people are often surprised and say 'but you didn't look nervous!'

So what's my secret to a confident performance?

1. Be prepared! Where are you performing? Will you have a mic or not? Are you performing with a live band, pianist, backing track? If you know know exactly what the plan is, there are less things to worry about on the day of your performance. Being unprepared will cause more stress and your performance will suffer.

2. Practice! Know your performance inside and out. If you know that you can do it that's one less thing you have to worry about.

3. Breathe! Breathe in through your nose and out of your mouth to slow your heart rate down and reduce your anxiety. This will help with trembling and loss of control over your voice.

4. Keep calm and carry on! If you go wrong, don't panic, just keep going. The chances are people in the audience won't notice, it will most likely look like you were meant to do it!

5. Engage with people! If you look into people's eyes and engage with your audience your performance will be much more personal and you will look so confident.

6. Have fun! If you look scared, your audience will probably feel your nerves and they won't enjoy your performance. If you look like you are having fun, your audience will enjoy the performance so much more.

7. Challenge your negative thoughts! Just know that people are there to support you, they want you to succeed!

If you find performing in front of people too much, then just take baby steps. Video yourself performing in your own time and upload it to facebook or instagram. Sing in front of your family or a friend and work your way up to singing in front of more people. Do a live feed on social media. Sometimes we have to do things that are outside of our comfort zone in order to grow and feel more confident.

I have been performing for 18 years and I STILL GET NERVOUS. Sometimes too nervous. But instead of giving up and saying 'I can't do this anymore' I take all the above into consideration and I just have fun.

My advice for people who really lack confidence is don't give up! You can do anything that you set your mind to.