Put Your Fear of Public Speaking to Rest With These Simple Tweaks

According to statistics, the fear of public speaking is considered to be among the most pervasive in the American people. It potentially has an adverse impact on both your personal and professional life. Almost every person goes through this fear at more than one point in his or her life; that familiar nervousness which overwhelms the mind and you feel the trickling sweat in your palms whenever faced by a compulsion to speak in a public setting. We’ve all been there.

It becomes tricky to dodge that sensation, and unfortunately you can’t always employ the flight strategy to escape an uncomfortable situation, especially when public speaking is an essential part of your job description such as delivering training sessions, presentations, kick-off meetings, group discussions, or conferences. Even during your personal life, public speaking is essential such as when you may be expected to deliver wedding speeches, funeral speeches, or speak to an informal gathering such as at parties.

According to statistics, the fear of public speaking is considered to be perhaps the most pervasive fear in America.

Public speaking is categorized according to the time available for its preparation. It could be totally impromptu, like a friend nominating you to say something to every one at a party, or to be delivered after months of practice, such as delivering an annual sales report.

Regardless of the style of public speaking, the following tips are bound to improve your self-esteem and enable you to speak in front of an audience.

It’s All About Your Intention

Your intention should be to deliver value to the people who are giving you their valuable time, which obviously means you should think about what you are going to say. You can perhaps add onto their knowledge bank by delivering uncommon information.

Whatever you choose to say or do, just remember that your end goal is to leave an everlasting impression on at least one member among the audience. Obviously, this is not an exacting science, but with some effort and honesty of expression you can surely connect with your audience on a deep-enough level to make an impact.

Your intention should be to deliver value to the people who are giving you their valuable time, which obviously means you should think about what you are going to say

This style of thinking works wonderfully to mitigate the fear of public speaking because now it is not all about you anymore, not about your appearance, your body language, your physique or even your health. It no longer matters how much you tremble when you speak or how many times you stammer while speaking.

It is now all about what you want to deliver to the audience, and the effort required to make it something impactful, something that adds value to their life.

The Underlying Message Should Be Bite-Sized

You may have a lot of knowledge about the topic at hand but your audience is still human and can only process so much information in one session. If you must deliver a lot of information in order to explain your point, then make some extra effort to eliminate any information that is remotely unnecessary. This way you have a better chance of getting through to everyone in the audience as you are doing some of the information processing for them. The same applies to visual presentations, stories, and charts: keep them as clean and minimalist as possible.

Inspire Visualization

Bombarding information without any interlinks or a story-like flow is bound to bore your audience. That is why you need to deliver your information like a story, as stories make it easier for the audience to make a visual depiction of your talk in their mind and develop links between all the different arguments you are making.

Bombarding information without any interlinks or a story-like flow is bound to bore your audience.

Avoid Showing-Off And Be Original

Using complex jargon, multi-syllable words, and sentences with complex structures may make you look knowledgeable and highly skilled to some people in the audience, but you will fail in effectively delivering the message to everyone listening to you. Keep it simple, concise, and easier to understand with vocabulary that everyone uses on a daily basis.

Accept That It Gets Better With Time

Feeling comfortable delivering a speech with whatever public speaking skills you possess is very important. Nobody is perfect at everything, and such imperfections are what make us human. Being good at something is always relative, meaning if you stop comparing yourself to others, then you have a better chance of feeling more confident in your own unique abilities.