Are You Afraid of Making Mistakes When Singing?

Introduction

If you are a beginner singer, you would probably have a lot of questions about how to sing.

Assuming you already know where to start or are following a structured curriculum of a singing course, you may still feel like it is hard to let go of your perfectionism.

Perfectionism can be paralyzing because it makes you self conscious.

Self Consciousness

Self consciousness is the most common kind of performance anxiety.

It usually happens when singers think they “have to perform at their best at all times, otherwise it’ll be a disaster”. I see students do this all the time during their lessons. I have a feeling they do this too when they are practicing.

During practice sessions and singing lessons, expect yourself to make mistakes. If you make all the mistakes you can make during practice/rehearsal, then your performances will be as close to perfect as you can get it.

When you make mistakes during practice and you learn from them, that is how you get better at singing.

Learn to embrace the uncertainty that comes with mastering an instrument.

Become mastery focused rather than performance focused. When you are performance focused, you are focused on the results that you are or are not getting. You are focused on doing well now. For example, you have to be perfectly in tune right now or you have to have the perfect tone right now.

Whereas when you are mastery focused, you focus on advancing your skills. You look at the big picture and you know it is going to take you a while to get to where you want to go. You are okay with that because you know as long as you are making progress, you will get there sooner or later. For example, you know learning to sing in tune consistently takes time, as long as you put in the effort, you will make progress and be better at singing in tune.

Conclusion

Making mistakes is an important part of learning to sing well. The more you get out of your comfort zone, the quicker you will master your instrument, the quicker you will gain the confidence to sing in front of people. To know more about how to overcome performance anxiety, watch the "Overcoming Performance Anxiety" masterclass here.