candy asks:
Any time that I have to give a presentation in front of the class or whenever all the attention is on me, I get very nervous. I have heard so many times that people hate public speaking more than anything so I know that I am not alone. Why do people like me hate public speaking so much?
Answer:
Unfortunately, do not know enough about your situation to tell you why you hate public speaking so much. The only person that can answer that is yourself as it can be different things for different people. What I CAN do is tell you about my own fear of public speaking.
For me, it was a need to be perfect which translated into a fear of making mistakes. I felt so strongly about being perfect that it literally crippled me with stage fright and anxiety. My mouth would go bone dry and my tongue would feel about 20 inches thick as I got up to speak. I used to write my whole speech out and try to memorize every word. The problem with this is that I spent so much time and energy thinking about getting the words right that I failed to connect emotionally with my audience and they were bored.
The thing to remember about public speaking is that generally the audience wants you to succeed. Most of them are just as afraid of speaking in front of people as you are and they do not want to trade places with you. They are thrilled that you are brave enough to get up there and grateful that THEY don’t have to do it!
Now when I prepare for a speech, I begin with deciding what message I want the audience to take home with them. How will their lives be improved or affected by this presentation? Doing this takes all the emphasis off of getting the words right and all the focus goes into giving the audience something useful. It helps to know something about your audience and what they care about before writing your speech.
If you know a lot about your topic, try to avoid writing out your speech word for word but rather create bullet points in a logical order to help keep your conversation on track. Then, just practice speaking from your heart, without memorizing words. When it is a topic that you know very well and you have passion for, you will know the right thing to say at the right time to say it. Trust yourself.
