This is the first in a series of articles addressing different issues that people face in public speaking. Today, we particularly talk about a different way to overcome public speaking fear when your audience are completely strangers to you.
Giving a speech to many strangers sitting in front of you is not easy at all. They are people that you do not know before. Thinking about that always makes everyone confused and scared.
Make sure that you have heard dozens of ways to overcome public speaking anxiety when giving a speech to many people.
There are some proved to be effective methods and some of which are not. Of course, I do not say all of them have a problem. There is no problem with the know-how to overcome fear at all. But at a certain aspect, some way proved to be effective only for some people.
So I want to talk about a different way to overcome the fear of public speaking that no one has ever mentioned before. I’m sure it will be efficient while virtually all other ways are useless to you.
The nature of your public speaking fear
First of all, I want to talk about the nature of fear. Whether you are about to speak in public or about to step onto the rollercoaster, your fear is the same essence, the same expression. You will have palpitations, rapid heartbeat, anxiety as if something dangerous is to happen to you and you’re afraid to face it.
Thereby you have observed those who play rollercoaster and how they react in the air like they are extremely scared. Are they screaming loudly? Yes. They shout out loud to release fear, they will be free from psychological pressure when shouting loudly.
Of course, I do not advise you to scream while standing on stage in front of people. You should not do that if you do not want the audience to think that you have a problem.
I mean the nature of the liberation from fear. The nature of fear is psychological and the pent-up in your thinking. Just direct your thoughts out of fear and that you will be free. By doing something to put your fear into a termination and there is no more energy to “feed” it again.
Be in motion
So whenever you feel the invasion of fear, rather than sit still on a chair and breathe deeply, you should stand up and do some activities, stretch your limbs, do some exercise actively to release the energy of fear. You can jump in place or shout if there is no one around. In short, make your body work out to release energy instead of sitting and let the fear invade and grip you.
When you are in active mood and body motion, your feelings will change, your thinking will not as the same before. Do not do those traditional ways anymore if it is no longer effective. Let your body in motion.
Another extremely effective technique in case you do not have time or space to start working out on your body is when you step onto the rostrum, you immediately let everyone play ice-breaking for all of them to be in moving their body.
You will take advantage of that opportunity to get used to the crowd and their movement. This will have two advantages.
- First, this is the way for both of you and your audience to relieve psychological pressure. You have the opportunity to reach audiences in a closer space. You will no longer feel the audience as scary as you think before. Moreover, you will see their smiling face. The smile put people close together better than anything else.
- Second, the audience will feel more friendly to you and they will be more agreeable to you throughout the presentation. They will judge you less if you accidentally say something wrong. It is a normal psychological manifestation of man. Often the little judgment they look at a person as their friend, rather than with strangers.
In short, in order to be able to overcome the fear of public speaking. Try to apply the way I’ve just shared. Instead of looking for a quiet place and sit down, try to be physically active in order to release energy, release emotional pressure. A better way is to be more active with the audience so that people become more friendly with each other and you will no longer feel pressured to give a speech in front of strangers anymore.