Ways To Overcome Fear Of Public Speaking – I couldn’t sleep the night before. I could not have breakfast. I had a lingering feeling of wanting to throw up. I was sweating. I was shaking.
No, this was not me before taking the final. This was me before giving a 10-minute class presentation to 25 of my fellow undergrads who weren’t even paying attention to me.
Ways To Overcome Fear Of Public Speaking
We all have different paths that led us to this point. Some have this fear forever. For others, it’s because of a negative experience that we don’t fully shake because we’re too embarrassed about it (hi, me). Either way, once faced with these overwhelmingly negative feelings about public speaking, it can sometimes seem impossible to overcome.
Stage Fright: Definition, Causes, & How To Get Over It
Now here’s the hard part: Once you reach this point, if you don’t actively work on dealing with those feelings, you’ll be stuck in a constant loop of anxiety and fear about public speaking.
The biggest mistake you can make at this point is to hope that you will overcome your fears and anxieties over time. Many people believe that they can overcome their fear or anxiety about public speaking by giving more presentations. It rarely works. Most likely, the anxiety of procrastination will take over and create a constant negative loop that will trap you in this mindset.
Worrying about procrastination will cause you to delay your presentation (duh, I know). When you procrastinate on your presentation long enough (which many people with a fear of public speaking do), you give yourself enough time to prepare a #DeathByPowerpoint presentation. Therefore, when giving your presentation you will find an audience that is not enjoying, confused or enjoying your conversation. This will further validate your negative feelings about the whole experience, increasing your procrastination anxiety for next time. If you receive negative feedback about your slides or public speaking skills, these feelings will become stronger and harder to break with each cycle you go through.
So, without actively breaking the cycle of negative emotions I mentioned above, each presentation will only reinforce that loop. If you want to break it—if you want to overcome your public speaking anxiety—you have to be proactive about it.
How To Overcome The Fear Of Public Speaking
I recommend you start working on this problem. What I’ve done is a combination of what works for me (and usually works for others) as well as new lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Warning — these tips are things like “do a power pose” or “be yourself”. I drew a comic about public speaking “tips” that I find annoying, because they don’t address the root of the problem/
The first bad habit to break is your procrastination and it is essential. No one can create an amazing presentation from scratch in just a few days, so you have to start here. This video about procrastination anxiety may be especially helpful. You’ll also need to work on the shame you feel from past negative experiences and identify self-defeating thoughts that pop into your mind.
Once you start dealing with those feelings, it’s time to get serious about getting started early and early when you have an upcoming presentation. I shocked many of my viewers by revealing my own workflow and timeline for working on presentations. But this workflow and timeline is a direct result of how I overcame my own fear of public speaking, and will be especially helpful if you have fear/anxiety about giving a presentation.
Tips To Overcome Public Speaking Jitters
I also shocked many practitioners by revealing that I recommend everyone prepare a script for their presentation. Many people are convinced that the worst presenters–those who sound like robots–use scripts. not true A script is your most valuable resource for creating an effective and engaging presentation.
People who like public speaking should also create a script, because people who like public speaking are often tangential or disorganized (because they “wing it”), which makes it difficult to follow.
But people who have anxiety about public speaking? A script (and practicing it!) is the #1 most effective strategy for helping me overcome my negative feelings about speaking. I can’t stress this enough — if I hadn’t gotten into the habit of scripting my speeches, I don’t think I would have been able to overcome my fear.
I was extreme about it at first. I memorized literally every word (note though: this was for a small class presentation, not a 60-minute discussion). I practiced it until I nailed my dramatic pauses, the different intonations, and my hand gestures on point. It took a ridiculous amount of time and was completely unsustainable. So when I went to grad school, I started tweaking this process and now have it fine-tuned so that it’s easy to fit into my schedule and practical for presentations of 60 minutes or longer.
Glossophobia (fear Of Public Speaking)
Beyond my excessive scripting and practicing habits, another way I overcome my fear of public speaking is by creating engaging and memorable presentation slides. Although I recommend PowerPoint for slide presentations because it has many great features, you can also create slides with Keynote or Google Slides.
If you’re like most educators I’ve worked with, you’ve probably been trying to improve your slide design for a while, but it just doesn’t seem like it’s taking too long or has the impact you want. Because there are many myths about what it means to be an effective presenter and how to design effective slides for an educational audience. Plus we’ve all picked up some bad presentation habits along the way. Designing great slides requires you to dispel those myths and address those bad habits, and I have a free online course on these myths and bad habits. It’s called #StellarSlidesin5 and you can get started by signing up here today.
It’s kind of funny how I discovered this. The reason I fear public speaking is because of people’s perception
Made me nervous. My solution was to create slides so fun, unique, and visual that no one would have to look at me–they would instead look at the slides.
Tips To Help You Overcome Your Fear Of Public Speaking
4. Remember that change does not happen in one presentation; Allow positive feedback to build your confidence over time!
The combination of a well-rehearsed script and creative slides resulted in the final element that helped me completely overcome my fear: positive feedback. My fellow undergrads would come up to me and tell me things like, “Wow! You are a very good presenter!” and “Your presentation was great!”
That they felt sorry for me and tried to make me feel better. I rejected the high grades and positive comments from my professors that “
I continued like this–rejecting any/all positive feedback–until I went to graduate school. That is, 4 years of denying positive feedback. And even in grad school, I was tired of positive feedback, but started to open up to it. I didn’t fully acknowledge that I created effective and engaging presentations until I got my master’s degree.
Five Ways To Easily Overcome Your Fear Of Public Speaking
Once you’ve worked on #1-3 and you start getting positive feedback from your audience (because you will), then take it to heart. Let it build your confidence, but also remember that it may take some time. Once you start getting positive feedback — or simply gaining attention from a more engaged audience — let it act as a buffer against all those negative feelings about public speaking that you’ve accumulated over the years. Let it help end your procrastination anxiety.
And who knows: the (currently) unthinkable might happen: you’ll actually start to enjoy creating and delivering presentations. yes i know It sounds impossible, but many people who have taken my presentation design course have experienced this transformation! And I now do public speaking for a living!
When I mentioned my fear of speaking in public with others, the only recommendation they had was to sign up for Toastmasters. For me, it was
The stuff of nightmares and I was not interested at all. I imagine that if I had followed that advice, my road to overcoming my fear of public speaking would not have taken so long. So, although I can’t speak to personal experience with improv skill development, I do know that it’s a valuable skill and that it works for others. If it doesn’t scare you like me (or your braver than me), I highly recommend you give it a try!
Calming Nerves Before The Big Talk Or Presentation — Durmc
Hope this post was helpful and provided some new ideas to overcome your fear of public speaking. For what it’s worth, you’re definitely not alone in this fear and I know you can overcome it!
Bio: Dr. Eco Rivera helps academics, researchers, consultants and evaluators communicate more effectively and creatively. She holds a PhD in Community Psychology and after nearly 14 years working in social science research and program evaluation, Eco freelanced.
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