Tips to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking
It’s rare to find anyone who has never been faced with the challenge of public speaking. It could be for a small group of friends or hundreds of strangers but the result is often the same – fear.
It is possible to overcome this fear, however! You can start by following these tips.
Speak in public more often.
Any task becomes easier when you do it more often. The same is true for public speaking. Try to set yourself up to have more speaking engagements. You can do this for church groups, community events, etc.
It can even be something as simple as holding a seminar at work. The key is to get out there and speak.
Be prepared.
There is nothing worse than watching a speaker who isn’t prepared. They fumble around for something to talk about, and they start using phrases like “um” and “ah” to try and stretch out the speech. It’s uncomfortable to watch. Don’t let this happen to you! You will have much less fear when you take the time to properly prepare.
Engage the audience.
Pose questions to the people in the audience. This is a great way to keep the audience engaged and remove some of the attention off yourself. You will feel much less fear when you are splitting attention with audience members.
Learn to build your confidence.
Confidence is a critical factor in public speaking. Therefore, you should learn to master this skill. Find courses and TEDTalks on the subject. Also, learn to get outside your comfort zone and do things that will help your confidence in general.
Apply humor to the situation.
Humor is a great way to break the ice, but you must use it with caution. People differ in what they find funny or not. Keep the humor clean and stay away from topics such as politics and religion. If you don’t consider yourself to be a funny person, then don’t try it. You will only add more fear to the mix if you try to be something you are not.
Self-deprecation is a good tool to use.
When you poke fun at yourself, people can relate to you. The key is to show the audience that you are human and capable of making mistakes. When you can tie this in with humor, it works even better.
Don’t be a pretender.
To speak with authority, you must have that authority. Make sure you are qualified to be speaking on your chosen topic. If you try to fake it, you will lose your audience quickly. They will pick up on the fact that you don’t know what you are talking about and tune you out.
Believe that people want to hear what you have to say.
When you are public speaking, remember that people do want to hear what you have to say. Otherwise, why would you be there? If you don’t feel like anyone wants to hear from you, then you will likely feel more fear. Don’t defeat yourself before you even begin.
3 Actionable Steps to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking
Find a course on confidence.
Commit to spending at least fifteen minutes per day on the course. If you can find video-based instruction, this is even better. Schedule sessions into your to-do list.
Get out of your comfort zone
To start getting out of your comfort zone, introduce yourself to people you don’t know. Try to spark up a conversation once a week. You will find some will not be receptive, but most will. For the non-receptive types, move on graciously.
Practice
Record all future speeches that you are planning to make and review the recordings. Highlight the good and bad points and try to eliminate the bad ones in the future.
