How To Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking
Speaking in front of a group is stressful. Even if you overcome fear of public speaking, each crowd is different. A small group, a large conference gathering, a sermon to church-goers all require different public speaking skills.
If you suffer from social anxiety or any type of talking phobia, and you want to understand effective public speaking so you can work toward overcoming that fear, you need to do more public speaking, not less! The art of public speaking takes time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you won’t become a perfect speaker overnight, but you can improve overnight. Here’s how!
1. Start or join a small group of other speech givers and share your public speaking tips with each other. Invite people to join who are old and new to speaking in front of groups. Talk about what works and what doesn’t. Create a forum for ideas and information to help one another.
2. Take or attend speech classes about overcoming your fear of public speaking. Whatever your anxiety – public speeches, crowds staring at you, claustrophobia in large growds – a course in how to give presentations will show you how to face those fears.
3. Determine what triggers your fears. Is it clocks? Is it the size of the crowd? If it helps you to have a loved one in the crowd to support you, then make sure to invite them ahead of time. If it makes you more nervous to have friends or family watch you, then ask them politely to stay away. Offer to record it so they can support you that way.
