What She Does to Help (Exclusive)

Even after decades of performing, Lea Michele still gets butterflies before stepping on stage.

“Oh, I still deal with stage fright all the time,” the Glee alum, 39, tells PEOPLE. “It is something I’ve battled my entire life, no matter what project.”

The Broadway favorite — who is currently back on the boards and receiving rave reviews in the hit revival of Chess — says the nerves never really go away, no matter how experienced she gets. But she’s learned how to channel them into something positive.

“I try to reframe those feelings, because I can be really quick to categorize everything I’m feeling as anxiety, and that’s not always the case,” she says. “So now I take a beat. If I really tune into how I’m feeling and give myself the space and the grace to actually examine those emotions, I can realize, ‘Well, maybe it’s not anxiety? Maybe it’s not all fear? Maybe there’s room for the fact it could actually be excitement in there for what I’m about to do?’ And I’ll transfer my energy into that as much as I can.”

And if it is anxiety? Michele has a new perspective on that, too.

“If I’m nervous, it just means that what I’m doing matters,” she says. “I’ll tell myself, ‘It’s worth it. It matters. There are high stakes to what you’re doing. It’s a challenge.’ And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, you know?”

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Still, she admits she needs one steadying ritual before each performance to help her focus — and it involves checking in with someone special in her life.

“The last thing I do before I go on stage is call my mother [Edith Sarfati],” she tells PEOPLE. “I have two kids at home. When I’m there, that’s my main focus. Then, the moment I get into the house, it’s all about focusing on getting ready for the show, doing my warm-up, looking over my lines, getting my wig on, etc. But when that five minute mark hits, I need to get out of my head, so I pick up the phone and call my mother.

During their chat, the two “just catch up and talk about our days,” Michele says. “It’s very normal, very easy conversation.”

That routine brings Michele back to where it all started. “My mom always calms me down,” she says. “Our conversations, they ground me and remind me that I’m still that girl who started doing this when I was eight years old. Any nerves I may feel disappear, because all I can feel is love and gratitude.”

There are other benefits to the catch-up. If something goes wrong while Michele is on stage, she’s able to recover from it much faster than usual.

“I definitely think about flubbing a line more than I’d like to admit,” she says. “But you survive. You move forward. When you do eight shows a week for a year, something is bound to happen at some point.”

She laughs remembering moments from her run in Funny Girl, where she starred as Fanny Brice to sold-out crowds and a multitude of standing ovations each performance.

“Sometimes a prop would fly into the audience or part of my wig would fall off,” she says. “You kind of have to look at the audience like, ‘Clearly this isn’t supposed to be happening right now.’ And the best part is, the audience loves it. So that helps you relax.”

Now with Chess, Michele says she’s finding joy in tackling something new.

“This show is pushing me in new ways,” she says. “This is the hardest character in a lot of ways that I’ve ever played. She stretches me, she scares me a little and yet, she reminds me why I love being on stage. I feel really lucky to play her, and to be a part of this revival with this amazing cast. There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

Tickets for Chess are now on sale.