How to Overcome Public Speaking Fear

Need to know how to overcome public speaking fear? Some of the greatest speakers in the world have, at one point or another, had to conquer their fear of public speaking. You might not think of yourself as one of the greatest speakers in the world and you might not even have a desire to be one of them. But what you do desire is to overcome that public speaking fear. By putting these steps into action you will have a grip on your fear of public speaking in no time.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. The first step of how to overcome public speaking fear is to thoroughly study and prepare for the message that you will be delivering to the people. Keep the message simple by following this format, “Tell the people what you are going to tell them. Then tell them. Then recap by telling them what you told them.”

2. Overcome public speaking fear by practicing and reciting your speech out loud while pretending there is a huge audience in front of you. Practice in front of a mirror so that you can see and play around with your hand gestures while you are speaking to emphasize your points. Use inflection in your voice. Make yourself index cards for those parts of the speech that you might stumble over. You can use the index cards as bullet points to keep you on track during your speech.

3. Ask a friend or family member to be your “audience” and practice in front of them. If no friend or family member is around, line up some chairs and pretend they are people sitting in the audience. Pretend to make eye contact with the people as you are rehearsing your speech.

4. Don’t focus on the people. Instead you should focus on the message you have to deliver to the people. Be confident in the power of the message that you are about to deliver to them. Believe that you have valuable information that they are eagerly awaiting to hear. Picture your mouth as being a honeycomb. The words coming from your mouth are honey. The people in the audience are bees wanting every drop of honey that is coming out of you. If one word comes out wrong, don’t sweat it. The people are still sitting there waiting for that next drop of honey. In other words, give yourself permission to make a mistake. If you make a mistake, it doesn’t stop the honey from flowing.

5. Get plenty of rest the night before your speech. Don’t forget to take your index cards with you to keep you on track. And when you arrive, know that fear is not an emotion. Fear is a spirit. And you have power over that spirit. Therefore if fear is still trying to overpower you, show fear who the boss is by doing it afraid. Say your speech anyway. When it’s over, you will have a sense of accomplishment and you will be glad that you did.

[goldiec]

on 6/3/2009 Great article on overcoming the fear of Public speaking. I stopped by and recommended you!5*