Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking
I don’t like public speaking. A lot of my friends don’t like public speaking either. It’s nerve racking and terrifying. Last week I had to speak in church. I’ve had to speak in church before. At my church everyone gets a turn to speak eventually. The audience wasn’t big, about 75 people, but the idea of doing it terrified me. It always does.
I tried dealing with the situation by being extremely prepared. I wrote out word for word what I would say. Then I rewrote it. Then I wrote it again. I ended up rewriting it three times. I practiced and timed myself practicing to make sure I took the allotted amount of time. I was as prepared as I could be.
I woke up that morning with butterflies in my stomach. I tried to convince my husband that he should speak in my place. “No one will know the difference. We look almost the same,” I told him. He doesn’t like speaking in public either so he wasn’t going for it.
Sitting in the meeting waiting to speak, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. When my time finally came, I approached the podium slowly. My legs felt like they would give out. I nervously adjusted the microphone and began to talk.
Anyone who has a fear of public speaking, glossophobia (a fancy word I just learned), can relate to this experience. There are ways to deal with this fear. These are methods that I’m very familar with having used them plenty of times in the past.
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Know your audience
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Know your topic
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Be prepared
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Practice
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Visualize the speech going well
All of these methods work for other people. The problem is that even when using these metholds, I’m still afraid. I still experience that awful panicked feeling. Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have that feeling at all?
What are you afraid of?
It’s important to analyze your fear. When I speak in public I’m afraid of making a mistake. I’m afraid of looking foolish and getting booed off stage. In short, I’m afraid of failure. I think it’s safe to assume that that’s what most people who are afraid of public speaking are afraid of.
Is this fear rational?
In most public speaking situations I don’t think it is. From my experience being in an audience, I don’t want to see someone fail so I’ll do whatever I can to help them along. There is the occasional meany who wants more than anything to see you fall flat on your face, but most people aren’t like that so you can ignore that person.
Have you ever made a mistake while speaking in public? I have. I’ve misread words, mispronounced things and even lost my train of thought. What happened? Nothing really. I apologized and continued on. No one mentioned it to me. There were no rotten tomatoes or eggs thrown at me from the audience. If you don’t make a big deal out of it most other people won’t either.
What if I really messed up bad and looked like a complete fool? Looking like a complete fool for a few minutes will not ruin my life or put me in physical danger. There have been plenty of other situations in my life when I’ve looked like a complete fool. Those situations were painfully embarrassing at the time but provided me with plenty of writing material later.
Everything’s going to be okay.
I made the speech and now I’m fine. Looking back at it now, realistically I was fine before, during and after. When this happens again, which I’m sure it will, that’s what I have to remember. The only way to overcome this fear is to face it head on. Facing it head on and in a rational manner will help the fear disappear–eventually.
Not so long ago I listened to a podcast by Steve Pavlina about overcoming fears that I thought was quite good. It’s a little out there, but good.
Photo by hiddedevries.
I just had to share that of course I have the same fear. One time in front of an art class I had to get up and talk about a certain piece. I had all my notes and points written on a card. When I looked down at the card, I didn’t recognize any of it, like it was a foreign language. I then went on to state to the class “I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know why I wrote any of this down.” Then I noticed the worried look on the teacher and student’s faces. I’m not sure what happened after that, I’m sure I blacked out or something.
I’ve done similar things. Once in high school, I actually threw up during a book report presentation I was supposed to give in my English class. I didn’t throw up in front of the class luckily. I said the first sentence then ran out of the room to the bathroom.