Posts Tagged ‘overcoming fear’

I used to be terrified of public speaking - now it’s natural and fun.

Dry mouth, heart fluttering, sweaty palms, blank mind - yeah I’ve been there! It’s easy to be afraid of public speaking. But I was never content with simply overcoming the fear. I wanted to be a great public speaker. What I needed was a way to calm down and apply simple techniques and strategies to talk like a pro.

When I’d learned to relax (more on that later) I learned and applied the following four steps:

1. Reassure your audience - they need to know you know your stuff and you are human!
2. Hook them - be interesting and relevant. Tell them why what you are saying is relevant to them.
3. Inspire them - give them information and ways of seeing that are new and applicable.
4. Leave them on a high - tell them a story them encapsulates your central message.

How do you become confident enough to apply these four steps?

Here’s some practical advice. Some have to do with the way you think about your public presentations and others on how you can start to change the way you feel about them.

Tip One

Breathe your way to calm. When you breathe out you relax that’s why people sigh when they’re stressed.

Breathing in without breathing out causes hyperventilation and worsens anxiety. Just before your speech take five minutes and breathe in to the count of seven and out to the count of eleven (quick count-not seconds!). On the out breath, hold it a second before breathing in again. This will produce a quick and lasting calming effect. Remember extending the out breath calms you down.

Tip Two

Yes, you have a responsibility as the presenter but relax you don’t carry all the responsibility. Presenting is a team effort. Audiences are responsible for politeness, extending their attention, interacting with you and attempting to learn. It’s not all you - it’s a meeting of two halves. Never mind how they judge you. How do you judge them?

Tip Three

Speaking is really storytelling. Use metaphor and stories. We all experience life metaphorically. The most technical and logical person spends at least two hours a night dreaming! Talk details if necessary but present patterns with metaphors. People from four to 104 love stories. Use em!

Tip four

Captivate attention and engage your audience by using words that evoke all the senses. Describe how things look, sound, feel, smell and taste. Paint pictures and sensations in their minds with your words. Public speaking (like radio) is cinema of the mind.

Tip Five

Vary your voice tonality and speed of delivery. Keep them alert and engaged! Convey energy when need be and slow down when you need to ‘draw them in close.’ You are the conductor to their orchestra. And be sure to pepper your talk with humor. Your willingness to be funny shows personal confidence and confidence is contagious.

Tip Six

Tell them what you’re going to tell them (agenda). Then tell them (the body of your presentation). And then tell them what they got (conclusion/wrap it up). Don’t forget to sell your sizzle!

Tip Seven

Watch and learn from other great speakers until compelling, relaxed speaking is a part of you.

Rehearse positively. You need to rehearse how you’re going to feel as well as what you are going to present. Don’t think about your forthcoming presentation while feeling nervous, as this creates an instinctive association between fear and presenting. This natural negative self-hypnosis is very common with nervous speakers.

Hypnotically rehearse your speech while feeling relaxed. This produces the right ‘blueprint’ in your mind. In fact when you do this enough times it actually becomes hard to be nervous!

All great speakers know how to use great self-hypnotic rehearsal. Hypnosis changes attitudes and can bring emotion under control. I used hypnosis, to change my instincts around public speaking. Now I just can’t get nervous whether it’s 50 or 500 people. The world needs great communicators and is waiting to hear your words. Go for it!

(Here’s a great resource I recommend to Cure your fear of public speaking at HypnosisDownloads.com)

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