SV Business Toastmasters

My First Year In Toastmasters
Article Five

Nervousness when speaking

There is a commonly quoted ‘statistic’ that most people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of burning to death.

In my research for this article, I found that in the top 50 commonly-held fears, it occurred in roughly 12th place. It was just behind the fear of spiders and just a few ahead of the fear of zombies.

This is a misleading statistic for a number of reasons, but the key fallacy in ranking one fear above another is that while you may have a real fear of zombies, your likelihood of facing the undead is far less than the very real possibility that you will need to speak to a room full of people at some point in your personal or professional life.

Plenty of books have been written on how to overcome stage fright. To me, the silliest one is that you should “picture the audience in their underwear”. This works on the concept that you can alleviate your anxiety by removing the fear of embarrassing yourself by imagining the audience in a vulnerable position themselves.

I experience stage fright like most everyone, but I can honestly say that I don’t “suffer” from it. While I don’t pretend that I can ‘cure’ anyone of such a deeply ingrained fear, I figured I’d share my perspective, and maybe it might give you someplace to start to alleviate some of your fear.

#1 Preparation -
Much anxiety comes from “what if…” Extensive preparation doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes, but lack of preparation all but guarantees something will go wrong.

#2 Practice -
Practice is part of your preparation. Use all available time to practice. Don’t just practice till you get it right. Practice till you can’t get it wrong. If you were simply asked to cross the room to receive a promotion, you wouldn’t be that freaked out, would you? That’s because you have confidence that it’s something you have done almost effortlessly for most of your life. The more time you spend practicing, the greater your confidence can be.

#3 Take your fears for a walk -
Part of the discomfort of our fears is that the situation will end in catastrophe. But will it? Instead of jumping to the end of the consequences of failure, think it through methodically.

If your speech DOESN’T go well, what would be the first result? Would you actually lose the respect of those attending….or would they be empathetic to the fact that you were struggling? Being an exceptionally strong public speaker is rare, so your expectation of your performance may be far higher than that of your audience.

Public speaking is a common fear. Your audience is more likely to be rooting for you if you are making your best effort, smiling in the face of your fear, and persevering the best you can.