Physical Confidence.

A theme in my life that comes up over and over is the role physical movement plays on my mood. I forget it and fall into old patterns of resting too much and just lying around then I wonder why I am in such a bad mood. I know that if the first thing I do in the day is read something inspiring, take a shower, meditate, and go for a walk, my mood is incredible the rest of the day. But it is sometimes very hard to muster the energy to do it. Some days it doesn’t work and I just did all that with no results. More often than not though it really does a lot for me.

“Carrying yourself in a powerful way directs your feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and body to feel powerful and be present (and even perform better) in situations ranging from the mundane to the most challenging.” Amy Cuddy.

Early on in my standup comedy practice I noticed a difference in my performance. I would notice a difference from one performance to the next and I would search for what the variable was, then make an adjustment and try again. I took my skateboard brain of isolating variables and fixing them to move forward to more success. I noticed after a performance one night that I just didn’t have my usual energy, the luster and excitement just wasn’t in my performance. What was different? I realized that I had sat and watched the whole open mic before performing myself. I had sat relaxed for 2 hours, then expected to get up and have this energy. I did not. So, the next open mic I went to I tried something different. I stood the whole time. I was new so I was still just getting up late at the end of the show. When you are new to comedy, they put you in the worst spots. It sometimes feels like when I played basketball and the only time I ever got to play was at the end of a game when we were so far behind nothing I did would have any effect. But with standup if you can squeeze laughs out of the worst spots this is how you get really good. It has become one of my favorite times to perform, at the end of the show where everyone is tired and over it. I don’t know why, maybe I am just so used to these awful spots that I learned to love it. I have Stockholm syndrome with unwinnable times in shows. If I were to do a real analysis of this, it probably is just my comfort zone and love of no stakes. The stakes are gone so I can just be free and present. It doesn’t matter what you do at 2 am at the end of the open mic. But I digress, the thing I noticed is that if I stand up I can find that energy much easier and deliver a much better performance.

I have taken this a step further and after reading Amy Cuddy’s book about the power of power posing, I began practicing power poses before important performances. It really helped me. A power pose is a stance taken with an open body position. So a classic is just the superman pose, arms on your hips and chest out. But anything with a puffed up chest will work. Also the captain Morgan leg up on a chair is also a power pose and a personal favorite. Put one leg up on something and feel the energy draw up, it's incredible. Really anything that takes up space and is open will do. I could bore you with all this data and studies but I won't and not because I cannot remember exactly. But if you need that check out her book, it’s pretty solid. I’ve read it a few times personally.

Now with all the power in this one can also do the opposite and do power draining poses. I like to think about it like how I was taught when encountering wild animals. For a bear you must make yourself as submissive and small as possible, while a mountain lion you want to make yourself as big and intimidating as possible. Same works with confidence, if you make yourself as small as possible and cover your soft parts, confidence goes down. In most situations this is not helpful. There are a lot of studies that body position dictates how you feel in your brain. So when I make myself small and closed in my body position I have less confidence. But I have been able to fake it and trick my brain into being confident and have energy. It has really come in handy and I must remind myself over and over about this. Because my default has been to make myself smaller for so long, but the more I practice powerful poses and open body positions the more that becomes my default state.

In the quarantine I have not been able to continue with my regular practice of standup comedy performances every night. So I have redirected this energy into other projects that I have not had the time to do but I have wanted to. For me this is podcasting. It is something I have wanted to do but never really made the time to make it happen. Now I have. It's incredible but I was noticing that after the initial few episodes and as it becomes less special and more normal for me to be recording podcasts every day, my energy has gone down. This led me to search for variables and I realized that I am sitting while I was recording. Oftentimes I am sitting for a while before starting to record. So of course my energy was not there, I am in this relaxed position in the safety of my home with zero real stakes. How do I turn “it” on? So I experimented with something. I took a walk and did a light workout. Just played this shadow boxing video game for like 5 minutes before recording. The difference was incredible. It was night and day difference. I had more energy, I laughed more, I was sillier and got to that headspace right away. I felt a huge improvement in my performance. This is a very simple fix. Just get my blood moving and trick my brain into that excited state. I tried it a few times now and it’s honestly the missing variable.

Our mindset is an extension of our body. Make the body feel good and the mind will follow. It's amazing how much of a difference that small physical push makes. In a time where many are at home and living a more sedentary life, how important it is to get out. Go for a walk, do some pushups, get up and do something physical. Get that blood moving. I am going to get my physical confidence back.

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Thank you for reading, You’re doing great. 

Bjorn RG.