Public Speaking Fear? Drown Out That Negative Voice In Your Head!

If your stomach churns just at the thought of speaking in front of a group of people, you're not alone. In fact, people rate public speaking as their number one fear - even ahead of death (hence the old joke that you would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy)!

Think about what's going through your head right at that moment when you're getting ready to open your mouth, whether it's at a staff meeting at work or in front of the local YMCA parents' group. Yes, I admit that I hear voices in my head - and I bet you do, too. Take a moment, close your eyes and really listen for that voice - what is it saying?

When I ask clients to share what that voice in their head is telling them right before they speak, they invariably come out with a whiny, annoying voice spewing negatives like "you're going to make a fool of yourself" or "who do you think you are?"

That voice goes by many names. Creativity expert Julia Cameron calls it "The Censor." I call it the "Joy-Sucker" because it sucks the joy out of your work and your life. The Joy-Sucker undermines your confidence and makes you less able to convey your knowledge and experience to your audience. In its worst manifestations, it may even cause you to forget your own name! The Joy-Sucker may come from old beliefs about ourselves or perhaps a comment made by an unhelpful friend, teacher or ex.

Instead of allowing the Joy-Sucker to sap your confidence, I recommend replacing it with a positive affirmation or Mantra. Mantra is a term borrowed from meditation and yoga and means a word or phrase that you repeat to yourself to focus your mind and energy. Your mantra should be personally meaningful to you and should be a phrase that you can believe. You can use a song title (Aretha Franklin's "RESPECT" comes to mind), a line from a poem or anything that makes you feel powerful and confident. "You go, girl" is my personal favorite (accompanied by a mental fist in the air).

Once you have created a mantra, try it out in real-life situations. When you're getting ready to speak, listen for the Joy-Sucker and replace it with your mantra. Remember that the Joy-Sucker has had years of practice, so it's okay to try several mantras before you find one that is powerful enough to drown it out.

You'll know the mantra is working when you feel your anxiety decreasing and your confidence increasing (a little bit at a time). As you build your confidence, you'll be able to tap into your knowledge and experience related to the topic at hand - and you'll be on your way to becoming a more polished public speaker!

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Get Rid of Public Speaking Fear by Dressing For Success

In this article, who we will be discussing how the way you look can dramatically affect the way your speech is received, and can impact your fear of public speaking.

First of all, how should you dress when you're giving a presentation? Of course, if you ask 10 different public speakers, you'll probably get 10 different answers. Some speakers feel that you should dress professionally for every presentation - that is, a suit and tie for men, and a business suit or dress for women. Other speakers feel that dressing professionally creates distance between the speaker in the audience, and so they prefer to dress more casually - male speakers will sometimes where a dress shirt and khakis, while female speakers will wear a nice blouse and dress slacks.

The truth matter is, both are right. What is important here is to know what kind of audience you are speaking to, and dress appropriately. Remember in section 3, when we talked about knowing your audience and your environment? If you have already completed this step before taking the stage to give a presentation, then you should already know a little bit about your audience. And what you know will impact how you should dress for that particular audience.

For example, if you are speaking to a group of college students at a university, it is probably okay to dress casually. Again, when I say "dressing casually", what I mean is "business casual". You have to remember that if you are giving a speech, you are there to have fun and enlighten your audience, but you are also there to conduct business - the business of giving your presentation.

I stress this point because there are some public speakers that feel that in these situations, they are permitted to wear anything that they please, such as Tshirts and blue jeans. Well, in some cases, it's probably true that you will be permitted to wear anything you please, but if you show up in a T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans, don't count on being called back to give another presentation.

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Overcoming Fear of Public Speaking by Finding External Archimedean Point

Is this story sounding familiar to you?

"As a kid, I was labeled an 'introvert' by my school friends. No need to say I hate that word! I was timid and I was anxious in the company of many friends. I behaved rather odd at formal functions, and I was rather unpopular at parties. This is the reason why for the first half of my life, I didn't hang out much at clubs...."

Is the reason you are reading this articles is that you are now an adult, and beside the fact that your age changed, the bottom line, with regarding to to your social anxiety is still the same?

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired of your fear of public speaking? Are you planing to do something for changing your stage fear? Because if not, just hit the BACK button. Be warn, this article is not trivial to understand and requires more then one reading.

Still here? Good persistency is a virtue!

As you know each one of us has its own style and willingness to try different approaches for solving various problems. We will refer to overcoming the fear of public speaking, but I am sure that by the end of this article, you may find my words worth for other areas too.

Take action!

Reading more and more tips for reducing stress will certainly make you more knowledgeable, but will not bring you a long term solution. When dealing with unexplained fears and anxiety, collecting more and more knowledge, can help for calming the symptoms for the short term, but not to solve them.

What is required is to perform some internal "switch" in your mind, and this is usually available via guided activity, where someone with external perspective, and probably more experience - help you to "map" the problem, and untie those nexuses that block you from achieving a productive behavior.

What I mean by "mapping" a symptom, in this case the fear of public speaking, is to bring into awareness the ingredients that compose the symptom and the linking between those ingredients. Those links are the forces of gravity that shape your internal "space-time" - call it personality.

Mapping include the exposure of both: hidden preconditions and external expressions. You possibly know about your inner self few of the things you will reveal again during the process, or maybe you don't, the important fact is that you have difficulty to weave, those "internals" into the "legitimate public expression" of yours - what you call reality. You work hard to suppress some of the forces and that work finally act against you! instead of helping you to be more productive.

By external expressions on the other end I mean all those symptoms you encounter when your fear of public speaking is in action. In addition environmental conditions, and expressions of your body, such as mimic, pitch of your voice, and even that "black spot" somewhere you are making so much effort to hide, while standing in front of other people.

So mapping means exposing a network of relations between all the internal and external aspects of the behavior you put under investigation. Exploring the gravities of your internal cosmos - if you want to think of it more visually.

All those words may sound to you very psychological, but this process of mapping ingredients of our behavior, is not limited to the subject of public speaking anxiety. It happens daily in various events that involve some interaction with "other" person. This "other" or "others" are not necessarily present physically. Virtual "other" may act the same.

The image or idea, we hold of this "other" is what really important because it provide us with kind of "mirror" to echo and feed us back with our words thoughts and behavioral expressions. Now we actually reveal is where the importance of the "guide" (trainer, coacher, therapist).

Again, this is not necessarily someone who physically present with us in the same room! It is that fact that we did some step to construct an external point of view as part of our journey toward a solution.

Can you do it alone?

If you are acting to solve your speaking anxiety problem by your own (which is a good sign for itself since it signal a motivation and responsibility) you are echoed by your own introspective thoughts. It means you rarely produce the so required difference -the gap between two alternatives, external to each other.

For a difference to occur, some external "other" must exist. Else, you do not produce a change in your "position" toward your problem, which is the most crucial for making that switch.

To re-map the ingredients, that is the secret key. And it is very difficult to achieve alone, only by collecting information, without the presence of some external "other".

When you are guided by some "other", you can actually map your behavior and then when relationships between ingredients are expressed (not necessarily - consciously) doing the re-mapping become available, change gravity between those "bodies" that construct your mental life and that my friend means - a true change!

Your Goal - engage with some "other" for "working" toward a change

I will soon refer you to some programs you can check. Whether to purchase or not that is your own decision.

All I am saying for ending this article is that the act of "paying" for treatment, or training, or coaching (call it whatever you like) is highly significant in terms of making the crucial step for engaging with external "other".

The function of "willing to pay" for solution, is the function of deciding to take responsibility for a commitment to "work" on your problem by binding to external "other".

A little secret - if someone is a compulsive buyer "of solutions" for unexplained problem, then the act of "making the purchase" is part of the symptom, and can not be refer as engagement to work via some "other". On the contrary, we refer it as resistance to change.

Because of that there are smart therapist that when identify this, they do not let the patient pay for the first session. Instead they will ask him to think for the "next session" about a reasonable price. In that case, the fact that this patient come to the next session (and in some cases, set the "price") is the act that signify for engagement to work.

This is your goal! No matter what method you will finally choose:

Do the step for breaking your inner world (Your Wall - Pinky) by connecting with external "other" and not just external "information".

That is a huge Difference!

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