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Public speaking is a very common fear, and, in fact, is the number two fear in the UK (The number one is spiders). In the US it is the number one fear, even above death. So logic tells us that in America people would rather die than speak in public!
So, what’s this fear all about then? After speaking to many people, a common thread seems to be that people feel that they will be judged in some way by the audience. Phrases I’ve heard several times include, "they will think I am stupid", "not funny enough", "not clever enough", "not eloquent enough" and so on. What it seems to come down to is that a lot of people think they will not be good enough in some way.
What does this really mean and where does it come from? It is my personal belief that this fear of being judged and not good enough is our own personal projections that we are putting onto the audience. In other words, it is our own fear that we are not good enough in some way that gets in the way of us enjoying speaking in front of others. And I think that this belief stems from a time when we were growing up when we internalised anything that we perceived as negative about us, even if it was not meant that way. So, I would suggest that includes most of us.
So what can we do about this real but perhaps misguided fear? I am not advocating therapy of any kind, just simply a change in mind set and the adoption of more empowering beliefs. Have you noticed what you say to yourself before or during any kind of public speaking? Is it something like, what if they think I am rubbish or something equally as unhelpful. The thing is when we say something like this we are programming our mind to seek out the answers to the question we give to it, just like a computer. So your mind could come up with an answer such as "I might lose my job". Then your mind is focused on worrying about your future rather than being present with the audience. How would it be to say to yourself something like, "I wonder how much they are going to love this presentation" or "I’m going to really inspire them". Then we are programming ourselves for success.
There are many other things that help us become amazing at public speaking, although I think programming ourselves for success with the right mind set and beliefs is fundamental to achieving excellence in public speaking.
