How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking – Most of us experience Stage Fear at some point in our life. Don’t you feel nervous while speaking in front of 100 people? Don’t you sweat more than usual while delivering a speech in your college fest? You couldn’t utter a word from your mouth. And this happens to almost everyone.
There are many causes of stage fright. Lack of preparation, fear of failure, embarrassment, and thinking that people are going to find your mistakes and judge you. These kinds of thoughts start developing in our mind before actually going on stage. This is known as Performance Anxiety.
As a result, people start avoiding such opportunities and keep themselves away from Public Speaking and feel relaxed. But that’s not the right way to deal with Stage Fright. Instead of avoiding Public Speaking, one should find ways to overcome the Stage Fear. Because if you don’t speak, how will you convey your ideas and thoughts to others.
The medical term for Stage Fright or Stage Fear is “Glossophobia” and the person dealing with it is a “Glassophobic”. According to some sociologists, the following may be the symptoms of Glossophobia-
• Increase in blood pressure
• Rapid Increase in Sweat
• Dryness in throat
• Muscle Stiffness
• Panic
Sometimes, people develop a sort of illness before their performance. Experts also believed that genetics may also play a role in a few cases.
Stage fear can affect your professional life. In order to be a good leader, you must leave all your fears behind and approach people with your ideas and thoughts in full confidence. Here are a few techniques, or we can say, Public Speaking Skills to remove your Stage Fear completely.
12 Public Speaking Skills to Overcome fear Public Speaking
1. Be Prepared
Whatever you are going to speak, prepare for it in advance, and not at the last moment. As you are a beginner, try preparing a week before the event. While preparing, try to research things properly. Preparation helps a lot in developing confidence. It is obvious to lack confidence when you don’t know what to speak, especially when you are not aware of the topic.
2. Practice
Try to speak in front of a mirror, as many people do this for practice. But I suggest you make a video of your practice speech. This will help you to monitor your voice, your actions, and expressions so that you can work on it.
3. Don’t only memorize things
Don’t only memorize things, but understand them. If you depend only on memorization, you may not catch up if you forget things during the speech. You can catch up if you forget things when you understand what your topic is about. Sometimes, you confuse which part you were supposed to say first. This happens because you have memorized the speech and due to anxiety, things get mixed up and you can miss important parts of the speech. So, avoid this.
4. Focus on your speech
Focus on your speech, not on the audience. There may be some people in the audience who are not paying any attention to your performance. Don’t care about their reactions. Avoid such people. But there are some people who may act as your cheerleader, like your friends, family members or your colleagues. Focus on them. This will boost your confidence level.
5. Don’t fear silence
Don’t fear silence. Silence is actually not a problem. Don’t consider silence a sign to be boring. Sometimes, Silence means that everyone is listening to you. In fact, you will be able to focus more if people maintain proper silence. Use this silence as an opportunity to present yourself more effectively. Just forget everything and focus on your speech.
6. Breathe properly
Take small breaks between the two paragraphs. This should not be too long. Don’t forget to breathe between two sentences. It will keep you calm and you can use the energy to add more efforts to Important words. You lose much energy while speaking. To keep your energy constant throughout the speech, breathing is important.
7. Not too fast, nor too slow
Each part of your speech demands different speaking techniques. You start slow, then you put some energy into your performance and then you slow down. You should know where to show energy, where to show the calmness, and where to take a pause. This should be decided during your practice speech.
8. Meditation
Meditation helps you to develop certain qualities like self-awareness, confidence, focus, reduce anxiety, better memory and control blood pressure, which are important ingredients to fight stage fear. This might sound strange, but exercises and meditation enhance some of your existing qualities.
9. Body language
Remember, I have told you to record your practice speech video and monitor your body language and expressions. Working on your body language is important as your body actions leave a different impact on the audience. They can better understand and relate if you use your hand gestures, your facial expressions, and your overall body movement.
10. Learn from others
Watch talk shows and see their way to talk, how do they speak, how they express, their body language, and their style. Then include some of their techniques in your performance.
11. Keep your audience engaged
Don’t let them sit quietly. Ask questions, find a volunteer, etc. One more good idea is to include an introduction session before starting your main speech and ask what people believe and their experience about the particular topic you are going to discuss. If you do this, you will come to know that you are not the only one who have stage fear. You will find many people who hesitate to come on the stage and be a volunteer.
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12. Read More to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking
Read books, articles, news, and make your vocabulary strong. In short, keep yourself updated with every latest topic. The reason why I am saying this is very genuine and relatable. Suppose you are attending any talk show, any discussion or any such event, and suddenly someone calls your name to come on the stage and say a few words.
What will you do now? You don’t have the time to prepare. This is the most common situation where it is obvious to develop stage fear. It is better to prepare yourself for the worst. For this, you must listen. If you have listened to the whole conversation, you can get some ideas about what to speak. So, be a good listener.
Apply these 12 techniques whenever you get a chance. Gradually, you will find a better version of yourself. Regular practice will make you an expert. You can speak anywhere anytime.
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But above all, make efforts from your side. Don’t hesitate to seek help from others. And I hope you find these points helpful to overcome Stage fear in your life. Start with watching videos. Learn basic skills. Then put yourself in such situations. Participate in discussions and other events. If you have your own way to cope with stage fear, let me know through comments. Start now.
