What does ‘Nervous’ Mean?

It’s one thing to get nervous; it’s another to decide what nervous means. 

We all have a comfort zone and nervousness typically happens near the edges of that space. Sometimes it’s an underlying and growing feeling and sometimes it’s triggered by something specific. The emotions feel like they happen on their own, usually against our will.

If you expect to be nervous, you bring it to life to fill the concept you imagined. So, paint a new concept of expecting calm and bring that to life instead. 

Public speaking students, which I taught for 22 years, would beat themselves up for being nervous, as though it meant they were bad people. It doesn’t mean that but their focusing on it so intently turned nervousness into a black hole. But they did it to themselves.