Singing Confidence Shattered? 3 Steps to Come Back Singing Better and Stronger
Is your singing confidence shattered? Recently a friend of mine had a project recording a song with another singer.
As he practiced, he felt his voice was feeling too tight on the higher notes.
His high notes sounded harsh so he lowered the key. He sang it softer which helped, but when he tried singing louder, his voice tightened again. He was feeling more and more nervous as the day for the recording drew near.
After they recorded the song, the producer told him that his voice sounded stuck and muffled on the high notes. This was the very outcome he feared.
Has your singing ever been criticized? Have you ever had self doubts? Have you ever been frustrated with your own voice? Have you ever been disappointed in your singing and performance?
If you’re a serious singer who performs regularly, you will have experiences that can cause you to doubt yourself and tear down your confidence.
If we let it, our singing confidence can be completely shattered. With our singing confidence shattered, we give up hope. We stop believing in our ability to get better. We begin seeing ourselves as failures.
Thoughts like these lead to quitting, giving up and abandoning our goals and dreams. It leads to darkness and depression.
How do we go from shattered confidence to great confidence? How do we come back singing better and stronger?
- Change your thoughts about fearing to fail in singing. Author of the book, The Art of Fear, and the world’s best woman extreme skier for 12 years, Kristen Ulmer, teaches high performance individuals to embrace fear rather than trying to conquer it. Try this exercise next time you start obsessing about your singing failures:
Sit comfortably in a chair and breath deeply. As you breath in, imagine and see all the horrors of your mistakes, failures and fears about singing and performing. Then, as you exhale, say this: I will never rid myself of this fear of failure and lack of confidence as a singer. It will always be with me.
Try acknowledging your fears and embracing them. I did something similar while waiting for an audition. I was amazed how relaxed I became going into the audition.
- Cut yourself some slack. Remind yourself how far you’ve come. How have you improved and grown as a singer/performer? What have you done that you couldn’t imagine doing when you were just starting out? Write them down. Celebrate your progress! For example, I never imagined I would increase my range an octave, or be able to sing a Bb4!
Remember the majority of people really won’t care for you or your voice. But if just one percent, just one percent of the world’s population liked you and your singing, that would be 70 MILLION RAVING FANS! That’s who you’re singing for!
- Keep studying and practicing your singing. In his book, Mastery, George Leonard says, “take pleasure in the endless repetition of ordinary acts… “…mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.
Is your singing confidence shattered? Then, embrace your fears, cut yourself some slack and keep studying and practicing your singing.
Stay on the path day after day and year after year. You’ll come back singing better with stronger confidence than ever before.
I’m Chuck Gilmore with Power To Sing.