Don't say Don't!

“Don’t miss that high note!”

“Don’t rush!”

“Don’t forget to come in for the next entry!”

“Don’t screw up, or you’ll ruin the whole piece!”

Have you ever told yourself that you DON’T want to do something, either in the practice room, or on the performance stage?

And then you end up doing exactly what you didn’t want to do!? 😩

Just like the Dostoevsky quote above, a common occurrence with musicians is to try and suppress the thoughts of what you DON’T want to do under pressure. Ironically, this often brings your attention to the undesired outcome even stronger, and then voilà, out comes the disaster you DIDN’T want to happen! 🤯

Getting to know how we talk to ourselves in stressful circumstances is an incredibly important part of improving our mindset and building confidence. This is just one example of how good intentions can backfire if you don’t understand why your mind does the things that it does!

So what’s really going on here!?

Back in 1987, social psychologist Daniel Wegner started to explore the idea of thought suppression. He created an experiment, similar to the one mentioned in the Dostoevsky quote, where he asked a group of people to try and not think of a white bear for 5 minutes. Then for the following 5 minutes they were asked to think about a white bear. 🐼

Over the course of the experiment, the participants had to ring a bell every time they thought of the bear. The study revealed that the participants who tried to suppress this thought actually rang the bell almost twice as often as the control group! Wegner found that the initial thought suppression made the unwanted thoughts “fight back” even stronger in the participant’s minds later on.

Through these discoveries, Wegner coined the term “the white bear phenomenon” or “ironic effect.” This effect contributes to a range of psychological challenges that we face on a day-to-day basis (try telling a child NOT to draw on the walls and see what happens!), with music performance being no exception.

So how can we think more effectively under pressure?

Whilst there are plenty of things you probably don’t want happening in performance, it is important to increase your awareness of what you say to yourself under stress. Tuning into your self-talk more closely can reveal a lot about why you get the results that you get, especially when there’s a difficult passage of music coming up.

One useful strategy suggested by Wegner is allowing yourself to consider undesired results in a controlled way, such as writing them down in a journal before a concert. 📝 Putting pen to paper can make it less likely that these thoughts will pop back into your mind mid-performance, helping produce a clearer and more focused awareness throughout.

You also want to clarify what you WANT to achieve in the practice room. By being deliberate and focused in your practice, you’ll then walk out on stage with a clearly developed idea of the desired outcome in your mind. There is little room left for worry about possible negative outcomes because your musical ideas are so strongly defined.

So turn your “don’t” phrases into “DO’s!”

“Don’t miss that high note!” changes to “Nail the high note!”

“Don’t rush!” changes to “Steady tempo”

“Don’t forget to come in for the next entry!” changes to “Count your bars rest!”

“Don’t screw up, or you’ll ruin the whole piece!” changes to “Go for it and play with conviction!”

Like on the golf course, if you aim for the hole and miss, and at least you’ll still end up on the green. But if you aim on NOT ending up in the trees or the water, you’ll probably watch your ball sail right there! 🏌️‍♂️

So aim for what you want to achieve, and give yourself the best chance for success!

Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S. R., & White, T. L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5–13.