Dealing with Public Speaking Nerves

Nervousness tends to set in when a speaker is to address their audience and different speakers have different reasons for their fear. Often times it comes down to the simple fact that they are afraid of being embarrassed if a blunder occurs during the speech or presentation.

The best way to get over the fear of public speaking is to be well prepared, but at the same time you should take into consideration that things may go wrong, so you should not be alarmed if something does. Be prepared to implement a plan B if plan A fails so that there is limited room for surprises. If you are to deliver a speech, try to have it written down and practice saying it before the mirror. After you have passed the mirror test, go to members of your family and say the speech for them. Say it so many times that it becomes imprinted in your brain and you do not necessarily need slides. If you do need slides, you should be at a point where the slides only contain summaries or a list of topics, so that you remember what to talk about and the order in which to talk about it. But your speech must be flexible so that you can skip to another point if you are asked a question or if something changes.

If your public speaking involves a presentation; the first thing to do is to ensure that you have all your visual and audio equipment if needed. Visit the venue before the actual presentation and ensure that everything works before time. You do not want to plan your presentation on a visual component and then find out that the electrical outlets at the venue are faulty and you are not able to supply power to your device. The worst thing that can happen when you deliver a public presentation or speech is to go into a state of panic; this is where you will start to make blunders after blunders because you will become more nervous after each one.

The tactic of imaging the audience naked has never worked for me, instead, I look past the audience and try not to focus on anyone person. Everyone can perform this task, but some persons are not aware that they can do it. You can practice it by focusing on an object and then proceed to look past it. This is what you will do with the audience as a whole, they will get the impression that you are looking at them, but you will actually be looking past them and not allowing any one particular face to get you nervous or distracted.

To become better at public speaking, you will need to get used to being in the spotlight, so try to get involved in other similar activities that requires you to get and keep other peoples attention.