We've just wrapped up another week of voice finals at American University. For those unfamiliar, these performative final exams—juries, as well call them—are the culmination of a semester’s worth of work in two songs; a chance for singers to demonstrate their growth and learning over the term.

While I love to hear how they have progressed, it is such a fraught time for so many of our vocalists. Regardless of how terrific their development, as the weeks pass, juries start to occur less as an opportunity to share themselves, their passion, and their voices, and more of a mandate to not mess up. To not "fail."

As a result, their attention about midway through the semester predictably begins to shift from growth and skill building to worry and nervousness. Fourteen weeks of study narrows into a fixation on those impending five minutes. Their energy, no longer expanding, begins to contract.

Of course, this mindset changes the experience not only of the semester, but of the juries themselves. Rather than looking forward to a nurturing communion and conversation about the shape of their training and development and encouraging suggestions for improvement, many singers feel that they are walking into a kind of battle—a do-or-die situation, with we professors holding the keys to their survival.

As well as to their confidence.

The guru of recording engineers Al Schmitt once told me, "Every recording is merely a capturing of a single moment in time," and juries are the live performance equivalent. Yes, they require hard work and preparation, but they are not to be feared. Instead, we should view juries—and all performances—as milestones along our creative journeys (rather than dead ends down dark, precarious, and torturous tunnels).

Of course, even the best and most seasoned of performers get nervous. That’s not something to make wrong or even to resist. It’s par for the course in performance and something we can mitigate through practice.

More important, we can learn to turn that nervousness into excitement by shifting our perspective of what performing is: An opportunity to share ourselves. A chance to connect with others. And a celebration of being alive.

Life, culture, and our insecurities tell us that we must be more, better, best. That we must panic in moments of performative truth as we seek to cross a chasm of perfectionism and connection that we’ve come to believe that performance itself creates.

But the real truth is that in those moments, there is no chasm. There is no separation.

We are all on the same side. We are all on the same team.

We are enough.

In both performance and life, the only gauntlet through which we must pass is a gauntlet of our own imagining. A chance to prove whatever we choose to prove to ourselves.

For me, rising to any occasion is a matter of being present in the occasion. It is the simple matter of doing the hard, determined, and creative work—work imbued with confidence and a sense of play—that culminates in the joyful and humble sharing of that proud effort. A sharing delivered with commitment, rather than attachment.

And I wish the same for all of my singers, and all of us: To be ourselves, to express ourselves, and to do the best that we can—generously, joyfully, and without reservation or hesitation—in every moment… both on and off the stage.