Three Major Keys to Speaking With Confidence and Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking

For many people, the fear of public speaking can be very real and very  debilitating. Just try to imagine stepping out on a stage, and looking down on a sea of faces all waiting for you to start…

How does it feel?

Does a visit to a dental office start to sound very appealing in comparison to making a 15-minute speech?

The vast majority of people suffer from some level of public speaking anxiety. However, there is no way around it. There comes a moment in our life when we have to walk onto a stage, pick up a mike and start speaking in front of a large group of people.

In this article I will share some psychological techniques and practical advice to overcome your fear of public speaking and to act with confidence while delivering your presentation.

Probably every one of us can recall a time during a presentation, when we forgot our next remark, knocked something off the lectern while speaking, spoke too fast or stammered due to anxiety and fear. These negative memories are strongly associated with speaking in public and even years later they continue to haunt us and impede our performance.

The good news is that no matter how strong these memories are, you have the power to “erase” them from your mind and change your emotional state whenever you want to.

In fact, there is a great Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) ‘anchoring’ technique, used by many professional coaches that allows us to become more confident when speaking in public. The concept behind this powerful technique is simple – first you have to associate the most powerful, the most appropriate state of mind with a particular task and then access this state whenever you need it.

For example, you can create a link in your brain between public speaking, confidence, and enthusiasm, and then trigger this state of mind before going on a stage or at any time during your presentation.

• Sit down, relax and close your eyes.
• Call to mind an experience when you felt confident and powerful. Make the memory as vivid as you can by remembering all the little details, especially your feelings.
• Anchor that memory to a physical sensation. When you feel most confident, make a small secret gesture that you can do anywhere without other people noticing it (like touching your fore finger with your thumb or twisting your ring).
• Recall a different positive memory and repeat step 2. Repeat this a few times to reinforce the anchor.
• Practice! Next time you need a boost of courage, do your secret gesture and see how your mood and your state of mind changes. The more you use the same anchor, the stronger it gets!

Anxiety, fear and stress trigger in our body very specific “fight or flight” response: our muscles tighten, our heart rate increases, our blood pressure goes up and our breathing becomes shallow. While this reaction to fear helped our ancestors to survive and escape danger for thousands of years, it is hardly helpful during our speech (as we can neither run away from our audience, nor fight with it).

Since your breathing rate is directly connected to your emotional reaction, the fastest and easiest way to lessen your fear and regain clarity and confidence is through deep breathing!

There are number of different breathing techniques, but in essence, they all aim to shift from upper chest breathing to abdominal breathing (as doing this allows you to inhale more oxygen and lessen the level of anxiety).

• Place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach.
• Breathe in through your nose. The hand on your stomach should rise. The hand on your chest should move very little.
• Exhale through your mouth, pushing out as much air as you can while contracting your abdominal muscles. The hand on your stomach should move in as you exhale, but your other hand should move very little. Ideally, your exhale should be twice as long as your inhale.
• Continue to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth for about 5-10 minutes, until you feel any tension leaving your body.

Note: if you have a tendency to speak quickly when you are nervous, it can only mean one thing – your breathing becomes shallow as you talk. Therefore, when you find yourself going too fast, pause and take a deep breath before continuing!

The best advice  I have ever received from  a public speaking guru was to shift my focus from myself to the responsibility I hold for the audience. When you speak to other people, it should not be about your fears, your pounding heart, or your shaky voice. It should be about THEM.

All these people came to listen to what you have to say, so concentrate on giving the them your best possible performance, instead of worrying about how YOU look, how you feel or how you come across.

If you want your audiences to like you, you have to like them first! Make giving value to your audience your main goal and you will no longer see unfriendly faces that came to judge you and find fault with your presentation. You will see a room full of people, who are interested in your opinion, who like you and who want you to succeed!

Just remember, confidence alone does not make someone a good speaker. Polished public speaking skills come from hours of preparation and continuous practice! So my advice to you is – learn as much as you can about your subject and then practice, practice, practice!