I will admit it, I have a huge fear of public speaking. Any time I have had to speak in public, I’ve always been prepared with all of my content, I’ve been confident in my knowledge of the subject, and I have rehearsed my presentation over and over again. Yet for some reason, my nerves always seem to take over as the presentation approaches. Well it seems like I’m not in the minority here… according to about.com, the fear of public speaking, or Glossophobia as it’s called, is pretty common and about 75% of the population has some level of anxiety when it comes to public speaking. There are a lot of tips and tricks that you can use to help ease your fears, here are a few:
Preparing
- Know what you’re talking about… make yourself familiar and totally comfortable with the topic.
- Make an outline for yourself in large type so it’s easy to read at a glance. This will help you avoid reading directly from a Powerpoint and keep you on track. Use your outline only as a reference and don’t read word for word.
- Rehearse your full presentation… but don’t memorize! It should sound natural. Sometimes it helps to rehearse in front of someone to get more comfortable with an audience.
While Speaking
- Make eye contact and scan the room. It sometimes even helps to locate some friends in the room before you start speaking and make eye contact with them occassionally… friendly/familiar faces will help to ease your nerves.
- Take your time. Our natural instinct is to talk quickly when we are nervous… but this could lead to you getting tongue-tied and make you even more nervous. Talking slowly and calmly can help to keep you calmer.
- Use pauses during your presentation if you need a second to think or catch up. If you’re reaching for a word, or lose your train of thought just pause briefly until you can get back up to speed instead of using verbal tics such as ”um” (I know I am definitely guilty of this). Pausing during a presentation sounds more professional than saying “um” repeatedly.
- Be mindful of nervous habits like playing with your hair or jewelry or tapping your feet.
- Involve the audience when possible. Asking questions and getting the audience involved will help ease your nerves by making it more interactive. Using humor also helps to lighten the mood and calm your nerves even more.
Giving a presentation is stressful to a lot of us, but these tips will hopefully help alleviate some of that stress for you. And as cliche as it sounds, practice really does make perfect! You should jump at any opportunity to give a presentation or speech because it will only help to make you a better speaker. Do you have any other helpful tips for speaking in public? Comment below!
resources: www.workawesome.com , www.about.com , www.hubpages.com
photo credit: www.startpublicspeaking.com
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Great article on public speaking. I have one more out-of-the box tip, volunteer at a local elementary or middle school to speak to the students about something that would be of interest to them. In the middle grades it may be career opportunities. In the elementary, teach them how to write out a check(I think you catch my drift). Speaking to kids is a wonderful way to get comfortable talking to a group.
That is a REALLY great tip Cindy. It definitely seems like kids would be a great group to allow you to gain some public speaking confidence before speaking in front of a group of your own peers. Thanks for sharing!