Can Self-awareness be a Hindrance?

All through life we find ourselves in moments where we must rely on our instincts and intuition to act, speak and perform. A musician practices many hours leading up to a performance, carefully stepping through each section of the song or musical piece, thinking through chords, notes, sections and the relationships between these elements. Then at the moment of actual performance on the stage, the musician must act more from the gut. Even when reading sheet music, a musician in the orchestra is at their highest level when they are no longer reading and thinking and are instead playing instinctively in reaction to what they are feeling and hearing from the other musicians. They trade awareness of themselves and their instrument in favor of oneness with the orchestra.

This phenomena is the same for a speech, a dance recital, a business presentation, a playoff game in the NFL, NBA, NHL or Major League Baseball or actor in a play. Preparation is study and is the realm of the intellect, but performance is action and it is fueled from the heart. It is oneness between the artist, the art and the audience. For any of us preparing for a performance we must study and practice to be prepared, but on the day of performance, we must cease thinking and switch to intuitive action. We are at our best when we are swept up into the flow of action to the point that we become less aware of what we studied mentally, less aware of ourselves while our bodies act out what we become to know intuitively. The speech then flows without self-awareness. The musician’s fingers find the right notes without contemplation. The basketball player hits an incredibly difficult last-minute shot while off balance without thinking through the physics and mechanics necessary to make the shot-he or she just feels for the right effort, angle and moment to release the ball.

It isn’t magic although the experience is magical. Have you ever planned, prepared, practiced, studied and rehearsed in order to be ready for a big presentation or performance and found that in the moment of truth, you were hindered by critical thoughts regarding what you were doing or how well you were performing?…instead of just effortlessly doing it? I have experienced this many times in business with speeches and presentations and also in live performances as a musician. The inability to get into the flow of a performance can be made worse by under-preparing but it usually has more to do with fixation on the self.

Taking the focus off of ourselves allows us to be attuned to what is happening in the moment. Is the audience responding? Usually an audience will respond with enthusiasm the more that they pick up energy coming from the performer. Although self-awareness is vital in so many areas of learning and development, the lack of focus on the self in a performer or presenter can be more integral to a great performance than the level of accuracy or the quality of the content or performance itself. After one has sufficiently practiced or studied, it is necessary to draw on instinct, aware only of the moment itself, not of the self in the moment.