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"Be a voice not an echo." - Albert Einstein

Putting Public Speaking Fear Into Perspective

Speech anxiety can affect your personal and professional career. It also makes public speaking less fun! Also, of course, you may miss out on work opportunities, get less sleep, and be generally more unhappy with your speaking assignments.

All of us need to come to terms with our speech phobia. Here are some ideas on how you can do that.

Physical and Mental Effects

Many people suffer a physical response to public speaking fear. A heart that races, a shaking voice, excessive sweat, a mouth that's dry, and the belief that you'll forget what you want to say, are manifestations of what happens when speaking anxiety has established its grip on us.

Other mental effects include a dialogue we have with ourselves inside our head. When that happens, we have a hard time concentrating on our message. Some of the things we say to ourselves include the following:

“I'm not a good speaker.”

“My nervousness is visible.”

“I'm sure I'm going to forget my content.” And:

“This is so unpleasant, I want to get to the end as quickly as I can!”

Does any of this sound familiar?

Worst than that is just trying to avoid speaking in public altogether. That's a serious response because we then start to make choices that negatively affect our career.

Of course, some nervous is actual helpful. It gets us ready for the "big game," and lends energy to our speaking style since we're highly activated. It's only when that energy tips over into excessive activation that fear begins to rule the day. That's when we begin to think irrationally.

Put Your Public Speaking Fear Into Perspective

In such thinking, we imagine things that just aren't true. Our anxiety and nervousness doesn't mean, for instance, that our audience is judging us because of our reaction. Chances are your listeners don't even see how nervous you are!

Your performance isn't necessarily linked to your nervousness either. If just a few people in your audience are resistant to you, why not concentrate on speaking to all the other people who are either neutral or actually are listening?

We're always our worst enemy, but audience generally are on our side. They are there to listen, and are usually interested in what you're saying.

Public speaking fear may have you thinking negatively, but the real situation is almost always better than you think. So remember to put your public speaking fear into perspective.

Tags: public speaking fear,speaking anxiety,speech anxiety,fear of public speaking,speech nervousness,speech phobia,glossophobia

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