How to overcome your fear of public speaking

27 Useful Tips To Overcome Your Fear Of Public Speaking

 Public Speaking  fear of public speaking,  public speaking skills,  public speaking tips

The average person ranks the fear of public speaking higher than the fear of death. The truth is, this fear could be hurting your professional and personal life.

You may have been there before.

You feel nervous, your palms sweat, your stomach ties itself into knots. You don’t want to do it. You would rather do anything else than talk to someone.

Is this you?

In business, it is essentially important for you to be able to get your point across. It is likely that all of us will one day have to speak in public. Whether we are giving a formal presentation to an audience, or simply asking our boss for a promotion, speaking skills are essential to getting ahead in a professional setting.

The fear of public speaking is very real. However, there are techniques to help you overcome your fears. There are even ways to help harness your energy in a positive way.

Keep reading if you want to know how. . .

1) Get Organized

When you organize all of your thoughts and materials it helps you to become much more relaxed and calm. When you have clear, organized thoughts it can greatly reduce your speaking anxiety because you can better focus on the one thing at hand, giving a great speech.

2) Practice And Prepare Extensively

Nothing takes the place of practicing and preparing for your speech. Write out a script of your key points, but don’t speak from it word for word. Prepare for your speech so well that you could answer any possible question thrown at you.

Learn how to create a speech outline in 5 minutes so you can deliver your message with clarity.

3) Eliminate Fear Of Rejection

“What if my audience hates my speech? What if they boo me off stage?” Try to eliminate all of your fears of rejection. The audience is there to listen to you for a reason.

4) Focus On Patterns

When you speak try to get into a rhythm or a flow. Keep you sentences short and to the point and repeat key points. A short pause in between points can add anticipation to what you are going to say next.

5) Watch Yourself In The Mirror

Practice your speech in front of the mirror as if you were speaking directly to someone.

Pay attention to:

• Your facial expressions
• Your gestures
• Your body movements
• How welcoming you appear

When you have gentle expressions and a calm demeanor when you speak, you will be more welcoming to your audience.

6) Record Yourself And Learn Your Voice

Record your speech on your phone or video camera. Record yourself giving the talk from beginning to end. Then listen to it or watch it, and make notes on how you could make it better. Some people do not like listening to the sound of their voice on tape, so it is important that you get used to your own voice and speaking style.

7) Work On Your Breathing

When you focus on your breathing your voice will have more resonance and you will relax. Breathe calmly and focus on getting into a rhythm.

8) Practice Some More . . .

When someone asks me how he can build effective communication skills and improve his public speaking, I quote to him the words of Elbert Hubbard, who said, “The only way to learn to speak is to speak and speak, and speak and speak, and speak and speak and speak.”

9) Give Your Speech To Another Person

There are plenty of people you can practice on. Be sure to tell the person to be completely honest with you in their critique.

Examples of people you can practice on:

• Your significant other
• Your friends
• Your parents
• Your dog . . .

Speaking directly to another person will help relax you and give you experience with getting feedback from someone. If they have questions about your speech, it is likely that members of an audience will have the same questions.

10) Public Speaking Classes

Find a great coach or mentor. There are many groups that you can join to learn the art of public speaking. A group such as Toastmasters is non-profit and helps people get over their fears by having them practice speaking on subjects over and over.

11) Lightly Exercise Before Speaking

Exercising lightly before a presentation can get your blood circulating and send oxygen to your brain. Take a walk before a speech or do a few knee bends.

12) PowerPoint Can Be Really Great, Or Really Bad

Sometimes, having a powerpoint can be your best friend. It can help you if you lose your train of thought, keep your audience engaged, and give people a good place to grab notes and main points from.

However, do not put paragraphs and 1,670,987 other things on one slide. To learn how to create an impactful presentation here: 16 Tips to Create a Great PowerPoint Presentation.

13) Even Warren Buffett Had Public Speaking Anxiety At First

Photo: Stuart Isett/Fortune Most Powerful Women/Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Buffett got over his fears by teaching investing principles to people twice his age. He forced himself to talk to people. He practiced these skills over and over again. Read more about how Buffett overcame his public speaking fears.

14) Sip Water That’s Warm Or Room Temperature

Sometimes squeezing some lemon into you water helps as well. It helps lubricate your throat. Try to avoid sugary beverages before speaking. These can dry out your mouth and make it harder to talk.

15) Read Eloquence In Public Speaking By Dr. Kenneth McFarland

McFarland, who passed away in 1985, is also known as the “Dean of American Public Speakers,” and in his book he didn’t talk about methodology or technique at all.

His central message, which influenced me very strongly when I began speaking publicly, was that the key to eloquence is the emotional component that the speaker brings to the subject.

To put it another way, the starting point of being an excellent speaker is for you to really care about your subject.

16) Pick A Subject That You Really Care About

How to pick a subject that you really care about:

• The subject should have had an inordinate impact on you
• You want to share it with others
• You intensely feel others could benefit from your knowledge
• You can speak about it from the heart

When you speak about something you passionately care about you will be more comfortable and feel more confident in your element.

17) Know 100 Words For Every Word That You Speak

Ernest Hemingway wrote that, “In order to write well, you must know 10 words about the subject for every word that you write.  Otherwise, the reader will know that this is not true writing.”

I personally feel that, in speaking, you must know 100 words for every word that you speak.  Otherwise, your audience will have the sense that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

18) Focus On The Material, Not The Audience

Focus on delivering your material in the best way possible. Don’t worry about audience reactions.

19) Relax

When you let go of your stress and relax it eases your body and makes you less tense. Look at #24 for an interesting way that might help you to relax . . .

20) Don’t Overthink Audience Reactions

There is always going to be someone in the audience on their phone or yawning. Remember that there will always be people who are bored or tired. None of these audience reactions have anything to do with you personally.

21) Avoid Talking Too Fast

Talking fast during a speech interferes with your breathing patterns. If you talk to fast you will breathe less, and feeling short of breath will make you panicked. Practice slowing down when you speak, and you will be much more calm and relaxed.

22) Make Your Nervous Energy Work For You

Learn to channel your nervous energy into positive energy. Being nervous is a form of adrenaline. You can use it in a positive way to help give an impassioned presentation.

23) Pay Any Price And Spend Any Amount Of Time To Speak Well

Make a decision right now that you want to learn to speak and learn to speak well. Be willing to pay any price and go to any lengths to achieve your goal.

I have seen people leapfrog over others in their careers by overcoming their speaking anxiety. In the long run the better you are and the better you get at it the farther and farther you will go in your business career.

24) Meditate 5 Minutes A Day

Meditating can help clear your head of negative thoughts. In an article in Forbes, Dan Harris, co-anchor ofNightline and Good Morning America discussed his public speaking anxiety and how meditating for 5 minutes a day helped him to eradicate negative thoughts from his mind.

25) The Typical Compensation For A Public Speaking Event Is $4,500 To $7,500

Public speaking can be a great source of income. Here’s a video I made recently about speaking in 69 countries and how I began public speaking.

26) Have Pride In Your Work & Recognize Your Success

Your strongest critic is you. When you finish a speech or delivering a presentation, give yourself a pat on the back. You overcame your fears and you did it. Have pride in yourself.

27) Develop A Plan To Improve Your Next Speech

Practice makes perfect. If there is a video of your speech, watch it and make notes on how you can improve on it for next time.

• How do you think you did?
• Are there areas you think you could have improved?
• Did you seem stiff or make any weird facial expressions?
• Did you use a PowerPoint to your advantage? Did it help?
• Did you use “um” often?
• How was your rhythm?

Write everything down, keep practicing and improving. In time you will banish all of your fears of public speaking.

Conclusion

No longer are you one of the people who fears public speaking! I hope these tips were beneficial for you.

Resource: BrianTracy.com

HOW TO IMPROVE PUBLISH SPEAKING SKILL

There are three components you must know in order to improve your presentation skills for better public speaking. When someone asks me how he can build effective communication skills and improve his public speaking, I quote to him the words of Elbert Hubbard, who said, “The only way to learn to speak is to speak and speak, and speak and speak, and speak and speak and speak.”

But while it’s true that the only way to become good at anything is by repetition, over and over, until it becomes second nature, there are many things that you can do to be more effective speaking in front of audiences.

FREE REPORT: Everyone is a Salesperson

The starting point in the art of public speaking is to pick a subject that you really care about. It is to think through the subjects that have had an extraordinary impact on you, the subjects that you would like to share with others because you intensely feel that others could benefit from your knowledge. With this, you have a springboard off which you can leap into your first public talk.

The second part of public speaking is preparation for effective communication. Preparing is more important than anything except caring about your subject. It’s not unusual for a person to spend many hours, days and even weeks preparing for a talk.

Planning For Effective Communication

To prepare for a talk, the first thing to do is to write out an objective statement of what you wish to accomplish as a result of your presentation. Whether it’s a 10-minute presentation or a 10-hour presentation, the statement of your objective is the same. It’s the answer to the question, “Who is my audience, and what effect do I want my talk to have upon them?”

So you need to ask, “What action do I want this audience to take as a result of the things I say to them?” Write out this action statement of your objective very clearly. Then write down everything that you think you could possibly say, one point after the other, to this audience to cause them to take this action. Remember, the reason for public speaking is not simply to teach or to share information. It’s to move people’s minds and hearts and to provoke them into changing their behavior in some way.

Once you have an outline of what you want to accomplish and some of the ways that you can accomplish it, begin to do your research, if necessary. If you don’t have enough information, begin to read and to ask questions.

If you’re giving a short talk, the very best strategy to improve your presentation skills is to write it out, word for word, in detail. Then read through it and edit it. Revise it wherever necessary. Add to it, and subtract unnecessary data. Work on it until it is polished, and then read through it several times so that you have such a good sense of the material that you can go through the entire talk prior to falling asleep or while you’re driving your car.

Improve Your Presentation Skill

If the first two parts of successful public speaking are caring and preparing, the third part is practicing and improving your presentation skills. If you have a tape recorder or, even better, a video camera, record yourself giving the talk from beginning to end. Then listen to it or watch it, and make notes on how you could make it better. If you’re using a video camera, look into the camera and use the same facial expressions and the same body gestures that you would use if you were speaking directly to someone. When you critique yourself, be very hard on yourself. Remember, the more honest and objective you can be about how you come across to others, the faster you will build effective communication skills for success.

Practice makes perfect, and perfect practice makes it even more perfect.  If you practice consistently, you will find that your presentation skills have dramatically improved over time. Remember, your ability to speak effectively in front of people can do more to advance your career and your life than perhaps any other skill you can develop.

Overcome Your Fear Of Public Speaking

It’s normal and natural for you to be nervous about public speaking, but you must overcome that fear to improve your presentation skills. Fifty-four percent of American adults rank public speaking ahead of fear of death among life’s major fears. Most people become nervous and uneasy at the very thought of standing up to speak in front of an audience, and their hearts pound.

Speaking professionally really is not something that you can decide in favor of or against. You don’t really have a choice. If you want to realize your full potential in the world of business, you must learn how to improve your effective communication skills to better communicate with people. I have seen executives make extraordinary career jumps, saving themselves as much as five to 10 years of time working up the executive ladder, simply by using effective communication skills at a corporate meeting. I’ve observed men and women who’ve put their careers onto the fast track by overcoming their fears and developing their presentation skills.

Pay any price, spend any amount of time, overcome any obstacle, but make a decision, right now, that you’re going to learn to speak well before groups and practice your presentation skills consistently. It could be one of the most important decisions you ever make in assuring long-term success in your career.

Please comment below and share your thoughts about effective communication techniques for better public speaking. Also, please share with your friends if you enjoyed this post about improving your presentation skills for greater success!

Topics included in this article include

Public Speaking

Effective Communication

Presentation Skills

Resource: briantracy.com

10 Powerful Public Speaking Tips from Some of the Best Speakers in the World

I know how horrible it feels.

You’re in a class, a professional position, or a situation that requires you to give a speech in public. When you find this out, the hands of the universe crank the earth’s gravitational pull up a notch. Your feet feel heavier, your knees start to wobble, your stomach and heart drop to your crotch, and your brain feels like it just digested Pop Rocks and Fanta together.

You feel like you might pass out.

It’s a scary feeling that’s never invited. Luckily, there are thousands of professional public speakers, some who are even shyer and more introverted than you, who can provide us with invaluable lessons on how to combat these feelings, rise to the challenge, and leave an entire audience moved beyond belief.

1. It’s not about what you understand, necessarily, but what you’re truly passionate about. 

Understanding a subject is a minimal standard for speaking. Any average speaker can memorize facts or statistics and spew them out like a busted fire hydrant. What transforms a speech into something tremendous, magical even, is the ability to passionately believe in the idea, product, or thought you’re speaking about. People will feel it if you do. When asked about how he became such a great public speaker, Simon Sinek response with a coy smile, “I cheat. I only talk about things I care about. I only talk about things I understand.” He continues with,”You can’t manufacture passion.”

2. Start at the top of the pyramid. 

There’s a common misconception in public speaking that you must build up your audience or prep them with facts and stats for a “ta-da” conclusion. But Harvey Diamond reminds us that, “If you don’t know what you want to achieve in your presentation your audience never will.” Not knowing your end game is self destructive because it relies too heavily on the attendants ability to follow your speech until you reach the end, or understand the point of your speech. If you state your end goal and deconstruct each point in a logical manner, it will be much easier for the audience to follow along and engage deeply in your message.

3. Remind yourself that human interaction is a normal part of everyday life.

An inscription found in a 3,000-year-old Egyptian tomb reads, “Make thyself a craftsman in speech, for thereby thou shalt gain the upper hand.” I doubt you have trouble gossiping with your friends about last nights episode of The Bachelor, or which player had a breakout performance in last night’s Monday Night Football game. Speaking on a grand scale is, in theory, no different than this. Professionals don’t think of their speeches as a performance or something they have to procure. Instead, they think of them as a gigantic dinner party with all of their close friends.

4. Memorization, wordy PowerPoints, and queue cards are evil. Pure. Evil.

I’m not sure when, or where, or why we were taught to speak this way, but memorizing every part of your speech or relying on cards to get you through is terrible. Chuck it out the window. Now! Likewise, if you put your entire speech on one slide that people can read, why would they pay attention to what you’re saying? Approaching a speech this way makes you stiff, and causes extreme paranoia and discomfort if you suddenly forget your positioning. What’s more beneficial is to keep your main point (mentioned above) and the constructional puzzles pieces that make up the point always in the forefront of your mind. Memorization and hefty PowerPoints make a speaker sound robotic. That’s never engaging nor fun.

5. Admire people who are better than you and learn from them.

There’s benefit in having a mentor for almost every facet of life, and public speaking is no different. If you don’t have direct access to a professional speaker in person, watch your favorite speakers on the Internet. Be sure to make note not only on their content, but also things internal to their presentation like posture, nonverbal tendencies, pace, motion, and eye contact. Or, in the words of Dananjaya Hettiarachchi, “You must find someone who wants to help you grow as a speaker.”

6. Make practice a priority.

Mark Twain once brilliantly stated, “It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.” Practice is essential to delivering a strong, sincere, and succinct message to your audience. Start out by just reading your speech out loud from a piece of paper or computer document. After you’ve mastered that, incorporate a timer. Got that down? Practice in front of one person, then 3, then 10. Record yourself, too. It will help you discover parts of the speech where you hurry, or aspects of your speech that aren’t crystal clear. 

7. Sloooooooooow dooooooooooooooown.

Going fast is too easy, but can often leave you with filler time that you’ll scramble to fill. Professional speakers are deliberately slow in delivery. Not painfully so, but a pace that will encourage everyone in the room to hang on their every last word. It’s better to cover missed points in the Q & A (more on that later) than blabbing a million words per minute and expecting your audience to receive it all. I don’t think any public speakers’ quote regarding this matter will top Lily Tomiln’s: “For fast acting relief, try slowing down.”

8. Use the sound of silence. 

This is the most common trap to fall into. It’s also the easiest. When speaking, we feel forbidden to stop talking. So when we get stuck, or momentarily forget our train of thought, we unconsciously start reaching for dribble like “ummmm” and “uhhhhh” to fill the void. Purposefully silence yourself in these moments until you regain your train of thought. You may think you look foolish, but you really look professional, collected, and confident when doing this. As Sir Ralph Richardson puts it, “the most precious things in speech are pauses.” Use them liberally.

9. Promote camaraderie in Q&A. 

You don’t have to know everything, and don’t be afraid to admit when you don’t know something. If someone asks you a question that you don’t know, fess up and ask their opinion. Invite the audience to be a part of what your message, not just someone who consumes it. This will remove the pedestal-like perception of public speaking and encourage communal interaction.

10. Be human. Be sincere. Be yourself.

Again, we’re all human. Everyone gets tummy butterflies when they stand to speak. Everyone wants to sound smart, not dumb. Everyone wants to feel appreciated, trusted, and respected.  The best thing you can do in a speech, and what the professionals do already, is to be ultimate versions of themselves. With the tidbits in this article, adapted from some of the world’s top speakers, you’ll be well your way to delivering a strong presentation, promoting a powerful message, and producing a captivated audience.

“The only reason to give a speech is to change the world.”

John F. Kennedy

Resource: lifehack.org

10 Tips to Beat Your Fear of Public Speaking

If the thought of public speaking makes you break into a cold sweat, you’re not alone.

Surveys show that the fear of public speaking ranks as one of the most common phobias. In fact, a pronounced fear of public speaking is even more common than the fear of death!

While I used to rank amongst those who would rather pass when it came to taking to the podium, I was recently asked to speak at “Emerging Leaders Tap'd In” -- an event sponsored by United Way. It was a great opportunity, and something I couldn’t miss.

Although taking to the stage can be daunting, the fact is that most of us would do well to brush up on our public speaking skills. Whether it’s on stage or in the boardroom, the ability to give a well-presented talk is crucial. A number of studies indicate that speaking may even be more important to job success than technical skills.

Public speaking can also benefit your personal brand. It can help to build your reputation and cement you as a thought leader in your industry. Public speaking engagements can be a great way to bring in new business, broaden your network and can also open the door for mentorship opportunities, giving you the chance to directly influence others and make a difference.

Related: Don't Talk to Your Audience, Talk With Them

On a personal level, public speaking is a tremendous confidence booster. It can deliver as much of a rush as skydiving!

Giving my speech was a great experience, and along the way I learned a thing or two. I’m still a work in progress, but here are a few tips that helped me feel more confident when speaking. Hopefully, they can help you beat the fear of public speaking, too.

1. Prepare.

It may sound obvious, but don’t wait until you hit the stage to get things together. Take some time to know your audience, and get all of your notes together before your big day. When preparing for his legendary presentations, Steve Jobs would spend days rehearsing and getting feedback. Write your material, read your notes and practice.

2. Understand your fears.

Matt Haughty, founder of MetaFilter, offers an excellent piece of public speaking advice: understand your fears, and recognize the biology behind them. It’s important to recognize that it’s normal to feel anxiety when there are hundreds of eyes on you. After all, if you're in the wild, and there’s a pack of eyes on you, you’re in trouble. Instead of going with your fears, tell yourself that those eyes don’t symbolize trouble, but just that a group is there to learn from you. You’ll be OK.

3. Loosen up.

Before taking to the stage, loosen up. Go out with friends, listen to music or watch some comedy. Whatever it takes to help you relax and get revved up. Music especially has been shown to have a profound physiological effect on us, and listening to some high-energy tunes can help you to get psyched up and motivated.

4. Be human.

Don’t feel like you need to put yourself on a level above your audience to be taken seriously. You’ll connect better if you let your humanness show. Tell personal stories, be real and let the audience in on your emotions.

5. Tell a joke.

This isn’t to say that your entire speech needs to be a comedy routine, but telling some light-hearted jokes and adding in some humor throughout your talk can help to engage the audience and lighten the mood. Although this should go without saying, you should never make a joke at the expense of someone in the audience. You’ll lose respect if you attempt to go this route.

Related: 10 Mistakes Successful Speakers Never Make Again

6. Keep it light.

You shouldn’t try to instruct your audience with your tremendous wealth of infinite wisdom -- they’ll get bored and you’ll lose them. Instead, keep things short and sweet. Focus on distilling your lessons into two or three points. Teach them through examples, anecdotes and easily digestible tidbits. It’ll be more fun for you -- and them.

7. Pause.

Taking deep breaths can help calm your nerves, so pause and breathe deeply after you make a point. Pausing for a few seconds also shows the audience that you’re confident and not rushing your material.

8. Don’t try to sell something.

There’s enough pressure when you’re on the stage. The last thing you’ll want to be doing is trying to sell something. It’s not clever and it’s not polite. Your presence on stage is enough publicity for the moment. Don’t try to slip a sales pitch in -- you’ll only regret it.

9. Don’t fear your audience.

Don’t fear the crowd. That's easier said than done, but when it comes down to it, giving a speech is basically like having a group conversation, but with a few more people, and of course, you’re the only one talking. The fact is that most of the crowd will be rooting for you anyway. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be there, so you’re in good company.

10. Be willing to make some mistakes.

There’s no shame in making mistakes as you learn. Your first speech is just that -- your first, so don’t worry if you’re not talking like a seasoned pro. You’ll get better in time. Just remember: we are our own worst critics. You may not notice (or remember) the mistakes that other speakers make, but you can be sure that they notice them. If you’re not willing to make mistakes, you won’t be able to improve.

Remember, a great speaker isn’t perfect by any means, but they are passionate about their messages and are able to convey that passion to their audiences.

Don’t worry about being the best speaker of the night. Instead, focus on your enthusiasm and your drive. Think on the purpose behind your speech. Channel some of that into your message, and you’ll give a powerful talk.

Resource: entrepreneur.com

Top Ten Tips For Successful Public Speaking

Feeling some nervousness before giving a speech is natural and healthy. It shows you care about doing well. But too much nervousness can be detrimental. Here’s how you can control your nervousness and make effective, memorable presentations:

1. Know the room.

Be familiar with the place in which you will speak. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and     practice using the microphone and any visual aids.

2. Know the audience.
Greet some of the audience as they arrive. It’s easier to speak to a group of friends than to a group of
strangers.

3. Know your material.
If you’re not familiar with your material or are uncomfortable with it, your nervousness will increase. Practice your speech and revise it if necessary.

4. Relax.
Ease tension by doing exercises.

5. Visualize yourself giving your speech.
Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear and assured. When you visualize yourself as successful, you will be successful.

6. Realize that people want you to succeed.
Audiences want you to be interesting, stimulating, informative and entertaining. They don’t want you to fail.

7. Don’t apologize.
If you mention your nervousness or apologize for any problems you think you have with your speech, you may be calling the audience’s attention to something they hadn’t noticed. Keep silent.

8. Concentrate on the message – not the medium.
Focus your attention away from your own anxieties and outwardly toward your message and your audience. Your nervousness will dissipate.

9. Turn nervousness into positive energy.
Harness your nervous energy and transform it into vitality and enthusiasm.

10. Gain experience.
Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking. A Toastmaster club can provide the experience you need.
Resource: toastmastersclubs.org