Fear of public speaking

Recently I was invited to speak at an event; while I was sitting in my seat waiting I felt the familiar unwelcome feeling of nerves building-up.  The heart starting to beat faster the thoughts of key points I needed to make bouncing around in my head.

I found myself starting to second guessing everything from opening words to reminding myself not to “mmm” and “ahhhh”.

This all brought back to me from many years ago a lesson I learnt about speaking from a group of friends.  One of them was a confident young corporate highflyer; she was attending a public speaking course and was trying a few of her newly learnt tricks on us.

What she had us do was to stay seated at the table and talk about something you are very passionate about.  We all took a turn and were having a good laugh.  Now she arranged the chairs in rows like a hall than asked us to stand up with a fake microphone and talk again about the same topic.

Now we all stumbled and struggled where moments before in the same room to the same people it was so much easier.  

What happened?
Why such a difference?

When we were sitting down and chatting we were comfortable because it is just that; chatting.

But when we stood up in front of a group of people that all changed.  You are no longer chatting you are now presenting and performing. There is no sound, just you and the microphone and everyone watching you.  You feel judged.

What happen to us? 

Our mind changed from a friendly and safe mode to a threatened and unsafe mode. The conscious mind sent an alert signal to the sub conscious ‘Danger’.  Even though it was just the same people in just the same room talking about just the same information. It was now seen and read as a threatening environment.

By standing up in front of people it kills our minds safe mode of confidence and excitement. This is the primitive conscious mind doing its primitive job by alerting you of danger and putting you on alert.  No difference to blinking when someone ‘pretends’ to throw a ball at you.  It’s a primitive response.

The conscious mind cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and a vividly imagined one. This is why some movies can scare you others move you to tears or a how a bad dream can terrify you.  Even when sub consciously you know it’s just a movie or a dream.  

The fear of speaking is a primitive response and can be as real as you make it to be.   The more time you spend going over and over the words and thinking over and over about it, the more you will work yourself into a state of fear.

The more you focus on what you ‘can’ do and how good you ‘can’ be the better you ‘will’ be…

A Few Tips on Speaking and Presentations:

:Fact: 80% of success is in the presentation and appearance and not the words so spend 80% of your time on your presentation, eye contact, honesty and appearance.

:Most people spent 80% of the time working the words when it should be 20% of the time. This is not what sells people it’s the delivery.

:Less is more

:Slow down. Everything is much better at half the speed

:Try not to just read a bit of paper. 

:Slowly move around the stage

:Don’t point at people

:Video yourself first with your phone if you need to

:Use the pause.  Slow down and pause where you can.

:Also watch professional presenters on utube and pick up on their skills.

Share and enjoy

Anthony Parker
www.themindwhisperer.net

See: http://www.executivecoachingx.com/executive-coaching/fear-of-public-speaking/
and http://www.businessspeeches.co.uk/overcoming-fear-public-speaking.html