Social Facilitation: How to Empower the Audience of Self

Respect the Guy in the Glass

In 1908, Psychologists, Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson stated that, "Performance increases with psychological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases." 

The concept of social facilitation is relatively simple: When you are good at a task, in the presence of an audience, you excel. Subsequently, the mere presence of an audience, while performing complex, or less familiar tasks, inhibits your execution.

I believe, social facilitation is way more than just an academic term. As we attempt to live a deserving life of influence and integrity, we must be able to understand what motivates us and what could potentially hinder us.

The essential variable in this equation is understanding how we react in the presence of others. Do we live each day worrying about meeting other people's expectations or have we chosen a path that will truly give us fulfillment at the end of the day? It is most important to remember that, we are our most important audience.

My favorite poem, "The Guy in the Glass" by Dale Winbrow, holds true with the following stanza: 

"

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,

And get pats on the back as you pass,

But your final reward will be heartaches and tears

If you've cheated the guy in the glass. 

"

          

The following help us harness our motivation to succeed and refocus our energies on the right influence as we move forward in our quest for greatness: 

1. Master your craft: 

Achieving a certain degree of mastery over your craft negates, the influence of an audience and augments yours abilities to minimizes errors. A seasoned professional masters his craft and demands the highest quality in herself than even her worst critics. Eliminate childish "eye-service" and people pleasing facades for a professional work ethic. Hold yourself and your brand by that standard and only then can you overcome the limitation of externally influenced ineptitude. Remember, intensity beats extensity every time.

2. Maintain the highest integrity and honesty to yourself: 

Be true to your standards, regardless of who may be watching. Of course, as humans, we inherently possess the beautiful skill of self awareness and it would be fallacious to discount completely all external influences. So in as much as we strive to defend our reputation, our character - The true you - must not suffer for it.

3. Never Let Anyone Else Do Your Thinking for You: 

Indeed, Crowd Psychology is dangerous. In as much as we can learn so much from others and may feel more comfortable in a well established group, it is important to retain our individuality as well and cherish what makes us unique.  Social Scientists have established the fact that the psychology of a crowd differs significantly from the psychology of individuals within it. So the next time you're in a group and facing a unanimous decision, don't forget to question yourself and follow your true opinion.

4. Respect The Guy in The Glass: 

Never discount your ideas just because they didn't come from someone else. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best in his essay, Self Reliance: "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till." Nothing more needs to be said. A word, for the wise, is enough.

5. Adjust your awareness of potential evaluation: 
This is it! Here and now... Today, not tomorrow... It's like we postpone our happiness, plans and gratification for some later date... For some later time when we can say, "I've arrived, let me now rest". We say, "I'm not that much of of an influence yet, let  me get my degree first"... "I'm still too young, no one will listen to me"... "Oh! there's no money for that now, maybe ten years down the road"... 

I could go on but I guess you get the point. These are all just silly excuses... Someone once said, "If you really want to do something there's always a way. If you don't, there's always an excuse"... What's most important is how you see yourself today... right now... The show is already on... This is the already stage is set... The audience have been seated since day one... 

Remember, a superstar will always give the crowd a great show. No exceptions, no excuses... Do not cheat yourself by thinking you are not your most important audience. 

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“As a born actress, she instinctively understands that the world is more than a stage - its an audience.” R. Z. Sheppard. 

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