Stage 1. Overcome your fear
Many people get anxious when required to speak to a group.
The main causes are the following:
· Negative past experience – some psychological scar related to public speaking in your past (actually, it seems to be a rare case),
· Lack of self-confidence - often originated from poor preparation or insufficient language mastership,
· Embarrassment due to unexplored situation – for example, if this is your first experience of public speaking (and this is common for any other situations, when we encounter with something new),
· Excessive self-centeredness – if you are too concerned with your personal appearance and performance, much more than with your topic.
…may be you will add anything else? Anyway, all these fear causes, as you will see soon, are possible to disarm.
Also it might be useful to know your type of fear - in which situations you are afraid to speak in public:
· Is it hard for you to convey your ideas and express emotions in general, even in one-to-one talk? Do you consider yourself to be a shy person? (general communication problem - GCP)
· Do you feel uncomfortably talking to strangers or in unusual situations, having no problems communicating with your acquaintances? (“terra incognita” fear - TIF)
· Or maybe you are getting panic only when your have to speak behind the masses, surrounding you and hanging over you? (fear of the masses - FM)
If you understand the nature of your fear, it will be much easier for you to fight your dragons.
How to overcome your fear
We suggest “4 P” scheme to overcome your fear:
1. Planning – means you should choose those performances, which are the most effective for your type of fear and plan your progress thoughtfully;
2. Preparation – means you should be well-prepared before speaking to a group;
3. Practice – means your should rehearse your performance at home, and also practice to speak during meetings and outside the Club;
4. Psychological tune – means you should proper set and relax yourself before you speak and while you are speaking.
1. Planning
When taking on your performances and planning your progress, you should remember that positive experience is very important. So start with small and easy performances – prepare a small joke, or come up with a short comment during hot topic discussion. It might be only several sentences – but it will be a good start.
Fastening positive experience is a very powerful psychological technique. If you have succeeded in some performance, even in a small one, repeat it. But try to go a bit further: if it was a one-minute joke, make a 2-minute joke, or try to improve it in other way. Then go for a speech or other more difficult performance.
If you have a “FM fear” – try to perform behind a small group of 2-3 (up to 5!) persons. Then start increasing gradually the number of people in your group – thus you will “boil you frog” without being noticed. By the way, “round tables” and communication interval is a great chance for you to try this technique.
Try to choose performances or roles, which correspond to your type of fear.
For example, here are some ideas of the Club activities and home exercises for you (in addition to usual roles and performances):
Some advisable club activities and home exercises
Type of fear
Exercise
TIF
talk with 5 people from the guests (you are not familiar with) and tell them about yourself
TIF
talk with 5 people from the guests (you are not familiar with) and ask them about themselves
GCP
write an essay about your fears and your vision how to get rid of them. Show it to or discuss it with a leading expert of the stage or with any other member of the PSC education team
FM
prepare a short speech to say “happy birthday” for somebody or a short toast and speak it in public
GCF
participate in organizing an “after-meeting party”
When you take on a speech, choose a topic you are really enthusiastic about.
2. Preparation
“Who fails to prepare is preparing for failure”!
When you are well prepared, chances of failure or goof-ups are greatly reduced. Besides you feel more relaxed and sure of yourself, because you have all the bases covered.
And if you are not prepared – there are high chances that you will fail … and acquire negative experience of public speaking as a result!
Preparation at home
You should know before you speak what you are going to tell about.
Write down your speech, while preparing at home. Do not make it too long and do not use too sophisticated language: are you sure you will be able to reproduce it? So make it short and sweet!
Decide how you will start and end your speech – our advice is to learn by heart these several sentences.
Do not learn by heart your whole speech – it will make it unnatural and explore you to the risk of failure if you forget or mix up some parts/words. But you should remember the outline and key ideas of your speech.
Back up
It is worthwhile to prepare a "security blanket" or a "safety net" in order to take it to the floor. Then you will be able to use this as a back up, if you forget what you were going to say next or in case something goes wrong in your presentation (this can happen even if you've done extensive practicing of the speech).
For example, it is good to have your speech outlined on a few sheets of paper or on 3 X 5 cards. You can then refer to them in case you have a “mental lapse”.
But your back-up is not supposed to be the full script of your speech. It should represent a speech plan, or some key ideas, or even key words, and also maybe some facts or quotations you want to read out.
Preparation in the field
It is good to check over the conditions under which you will speak. If you can, go up to the lectern to check things over and get a feel for things. If you will use a microphone, or a laptop - check it out.
Check out the room beforehand – come to the floor and say several words loudly. Try to visualize how you will be doing things.
If you are going to make a performance in the Club - it might be helpful if you come before the meeting, maybe even in other day, and rehearse your speech in the empty room.
3. Practice
You should practice your speech many times before you give it. Even if you know your material very well, it is extremely important. The more you give a talk, the more automatic it becomes, the more meat it can have, and the more confidence you have in your abilities to give the speech.
There are 2 ways to practice a particular speech: at home (alone or behind the audience) and “in the field” – when you actually perform in the Club (or somewhere else).
Practice at home - alone
The simplest way is to say the speech out loudly. This will help you to get the material more ingrained in your memory.
Then say the speech, looking into a mirror. Thus you will have to concentrate more. You will also get an idea of how you look when speaking. Finally, it allows you to practice eye contact with the audience.
An interesting trick is to say your speech while standing in the corner. The sound reflects back to you, and you can get a good idea how you sound when you speak.
Another way to practice is using a tape recorder. This forces you to avoid pausing and to try to remember things. It also allows you to play the speech back to study how you sound, your phrasing, and the content of the material.
Practice at home - before the audience
This is a very important way to practice, because it is getting closer to the "real world" of speaking to a group. Even an audience of one person is good for this type of practice.
Your first audience is your near and dear – practice on them. Stand behind them and deliver your speech.
Practice in the field
Of course, the best practice is “learning by doing” – you have to take on performances to learn how to speak in public!
Use any minor possibility to communicate and talk: communicational interval, hot topic discussion or round table. And do not forget that there are plenty of chances to practice outside the Club.
While making a performance in the Club, do not read out your speech from your back up; you should address your speech to the audience, at least to several persons, and look at them. Otherwise, you may regard you have not delivered a public performance at all - you just have read some text aloud for your own pleasure.
4. Psychological tune
During preparation stage
First of all, realize that tension and nervousness are normal. It means you take your performance serious indeed.
If there are several days left before your performance, and you are getting more and more nervous, it might be useful for you to model in mind the worst scenario you are afraid of. And than to think what will be the best set of your actions. You should model the “happy end” of this story in your mind.
Just before speaking
You should perceive your speech as training – before your real speech to be delivered behind your colleagues or your boss. So you are not obliged to make everything perfect. After all, much more dreadful troubles sometimes happen, incommensurable with unsuccessful performance – such as death, illness, loss of intimates, etc. Do not oversize the scale of the tragedy!
Do not forget that you have a back up. One thing that having a safety net provides is that it reduces you anxiety about forgetting what you were going to say or having your mind go blank. You may never even use the cards, but the fact that you have them - just in case - can greatly reduce the butterflies.
Get rid of the fear of your audience. The more important the audience or the occasion, the greater your fear can be. You don't want to look like a fool in front of the bosses at work, your peers, or even your friends and relatives. Hear is a piece of advice:
· One method to overcome this fear is to visualize the people as not all that important. An old trick is to imagine that the audience is naked. Or perhaps imagine them all in clown outfits. A ridiculous image will make them seem not all that important. But the problem with that method is that it seems somewhat negative. If you look down at your audience, it may be reflected in your speech.
· More positive approach is to realize that the audience is usually on your side. They want to hear what you have to say and to see you do well. Before you give your speech, think of them as caring, friendly people who want to hear you speak. It is just like talking to your friends. The positive image should relax you and put you in a good frame of mind. The audience will also read your body language and respond accordingly.
When you are introduced to speak, take three breaths to settle you down before you get out of your chair. Then when you go up to the lectern, thank the person who introduced you and then count to 10 before you start speaking. This will allow the audience to get settled and ready to hear you. It also is a way that you are showing that you are now in control. It is not easy to do, because you have to look at the audience and panic may settle in. But if you have made all the preparations, you can be sure of yourself and deserve to be in control of the situation. It is a good feeling.
During your performance
While speaking in public, try to convert your fear into emotions – remember that your anxiety in most cases is perceived as enthusiasm by the audience! Smile!
Your performance is influenced by your physical condition - try to breeze deep and slow.
If you do have a “TIF” or “FM” fear – it might be helpful to find a familiar person in the audience or at least a sympathetic face and to approach your speech to him/her.
Recommended performances and roles:
· Introduction speech
· Word of the day
· Joke of the day
· Hot topic discussion – participation
· Role: Registrar
Useful links: