A Forever Recovery Speaking in Public

Getting Over Your Public Speaking Phobia

By Ronnie Taggy

Millions and millions of people suffer from an overwhelming public speaking phobia. This particular phobia can be crippling. People lose their appetite, they can’t sleep and they have anxiety at the mere thought of the fact that they might actually have to give a speech. Whether it is for work, school, fund raising, etc.

If you know your topic and have solid points to make, you will do just fine. My mother always used to tell me to imagine that everybody in the audience was in their underwear while you were giving a speech. This would make you feel superior to them and almost want to laugh…but instead, it makes you comfortable. It might not work for everyone, but hey, it works for me.

If someone told you that in two weeks, you are going to have to give a karate demonstration in front of hundreds of people. The only problem is…you DON’T know karate! Well, obviously nobody would attempt to give a karate demonstration without knowing one lick of the martial art.

So with that said, why would anyone want to attempt giving a speech if they have no idea HOW to do it properly?

Getting over your public speaking phobia is one thing. Learning how to work the crowd and keep peoples’ interest is the next. However, they go hand in hand. One would not be as effective without the other, agreed? See how I have made several good points in this article? If you do the same in your speech, people will respect you. They will want to listen to what you have to say and before you know it your speech will be over and done with. Don’t let your fears be in control of you and your emotions.

A Forever Recovery Speaking Phobia

Overcoming Nerves - In Public Speaking And Entertaining

By: Johnnie Gentle

Many people often assume that those of us who stand up to perform or take part in any form of public speaking are not troubled by nerves and that their own attempts would only be doomed to failure because of their feelings of nervousness and fear.

These thoughts only exacerbate the feelings. When they do attempt to speak, their mouth goes dry, the hands begin to sweat, the stomach churns and a feeling of nausea takes over. Very often they begin to tremble and the brain seems to stop working.

In this confused state they just ‘freeze’ and yet another negative experience is added to their memory banks, with the certain declaration of - “Never Again”.

First of all, we need to understand why we feel this nervousness. Let’s face it, - we know we can speak; we’ve rehearsed and practiced well, the family thought the act or the tricks were great, or the speech was amusing, so there’s really nothing to be afraid of there.

We’ve checked our ‘flies’, - so nothing to worry about in that respect. If you have prepared what you want to say and rehearsed your act well, then you should be ‘home and dry’ and it should be a breeze. I can assure you, if you have done the preparation, it will be a breeze, but you will still feel nervous.

During my entertaining days I suffered badly from nervousness prior to going on stage. As a matter of fact I still do to this day. My act always went down really well and I was inundated with bookings and re-bookings, so my confidence was always high. However, the nerves were always a nightmare prior to starting my act and I could never understand why.

An old experienced entertainer once told me that all good performers, whether in show business or sports performance or even academic or business performers, - feel nerves to varying degrees, and usually the higher standard of performance, - the greater the feeling of nerves and apprehension.

He explained that it’s not the fear of not being able to perform, or of forgetting your lines, (or in the case of the sportsman, of not being able to run the race), it is actually the fear of not quite living up to your own high standards.

You see the good, conscientious performer sets his sights and standards as high as he possibly can, and so even as he improves, he keeps pushing his standards that little bit higher. You can therefore see why he will never free himself of these feelings of nerves and apprehension. It’s simply a concern that you will not live up to your own high standards.

So how do we overcome nerves? - Well, you don’t. You simply learn to understand and nurture them as your friends and your guides, which help to ensure a really high standard of performance.

You could of course lower your sights, but this would surely lead to lowering your performance and eventually no performance at all. Yet, this is what most people do. They lower the standard of their performance, taking on only the easy stuff, the things they are confident they can do.

However, lowering the standard of your performance is not the way. It may just help decrease nerves, but it will eventually kill your performance completely. You see, when speakers or entertainers get a bad reception or “die”, as we say, they very often never perform again. “Finished!”

Janet Schlarbaum Speaking And Entertaining

 Overcoming Public Speaking Stress

Author Sean Kenaston

From A Forever Recovery

For most of us, public speaking is a common source of stress and nervousness. Many people may never overcome their fear of public speaking, which can have a negative impact on their careers and overall success in life. It’s an unfortunate reality that if we wish to succeed in our professional and personal life, we will be forced to speak in front of a number of people at some time or another.

Public speaking does not need to be so hard and stressful. If you put in a bit of effort and learn its secrets, it is very possible to overcome the stress of public speaking.

Speaking in front of large gatherings doesn’t need to be too stressful, difficult, and demanding; clear your mind of this negative opinion. Every great speaker started as a novice. It was through intense effort and dedication that they turned out to be the best in the business. With the same kind of commitment, you can be just like them.

To succeed in public speaking, you do not need to be the most brilliant person on the planet. You just need to give it an honest effort. Your audience doesn’t expect you to be a master of all things known to mankind; all they want from you is dedication and determination. You’re there to present some relevant information in a way that’s easy for the audience to understand. They’re not expecting a brilliant and polished speech.

It is important to assert yourself. You want your audience to know that you understand what you’re talking about. If you feel a bit nervous and jittery when you first stand up in front of your audience, don’t worry! It is quite common and natural. All speakers feel that way, even the best! Just take a deep breath and try to relax. Try to establish eye-contact with your audience. Wait until you’re ready. Once you’ve achieved this, you’ll be well on your way to a powerful speech.

A lot of the stress of public speaking is caused by the feeling that you won’t be able to perform well when the time comes. To prepare for this, start practicing various speaking techniques in front of small groups of people during your daily routine. Tell a joke or story to a group of friends. You can even practice your speaking when talking to a sales clerk when you’re out shopping. After a while, you’ll begin to feel more confident speaking to larger and larger groups of people.

A Forever Recovery on Public Speaking Stress

Improve Your Public Speaking Skills

Posted by: A Forever Recovery

By Tanner Larsson

Public speaking is simply the act of getting up in front of people and talking about a subject. As easy as it may seem, there are important skills that are required in order to keep the audience’s attention while not straying too far from the topic at hand. Developing these skills is vital to becoming a good public speaker.

When speaking in public, it is important not to be afraid of making mistakes. Worrying about forgetting a line or not following a prewritten speech will only make you more nervous from the get go and make it more likely that you will indeed make a mistake. Making mistakes is human and understandable to the audience creating a sense of empathy. It is important to make a natural recovery from mistakes and not get down on yourself for “screwing up.”

Good public speakers usually always use humor in their presentations. Telling jokes can often be good way of “breaking the ice” with the audience. However, if joke telling is not your forte then it is best to avoid doing so. Humor can be used subtly and a willingness to poke fun at yourself makes you appear more human to the audience. Storytelling can be a useful tool for a public speaker. By relating information from the presentation to your own life, you make your topic feel more real and more applicable to everyday living.

A skillful use of the public speaking environment is quite important as well. It is important not to seem rigid when giving a presentation. You should use the space that is available and move around a bit to make you seem more comfortable with what you are speaking about. In confined spaces, public speakers should use more body language.

An appropriate use of notes is also essential when speaking in public. It is important not to read during your presentation and to only use notes as an outline and as a last resort in case you forget some information. Also, visual aids should be used to liven the presentation and in turn make it flow better.

A Forever Recovery Improvement

Public Speaking Tips to Impress Your Audience

Posted by: A Forever Recovery

By Michael Lee

There will come a time when a person has to effectively deliver a speech in front of a group of people, so books that teach public speaking tips have become hot sellers. The rules of public speaking are as simple as A, B, C. Captivate your listeners by knowing the background and expectation of your audience before the speaking event. That’s the most important public speaking tip you have to practice before doing anything else.

Here are other public speaking tips and strategies that will help anyone become an effective public speaker:

1) Making tiny mistakes is fine, as long as you learn from them and don’t repeat them. However, it is highly recommendable to prepare well before your speech to avoid any embarrassing instances.

You are only human and you can recover from the errors you’ve made. Anyway, bouncing back from your mistakes makes your personality as a public speaker more trustworthy.

2) Bring out your sense of humor. You may tell jokes if the topic allows you to; but if you’re not good at it, better leave the jokes from your agenda behind, for there is nothing more that can aggravate a speaking disaster than a bad punch line.

3) Master the art of telling stories. Own the stories you tell by using your real personal experience to bring life to the material you are delivering. These stories make you a real human, and animation can add color to them.

4) Use technology to sustain your momentum as a speaker but not vice versa. Your power point slides, if you are using one for your presentation, should contain visual graphics and not long sentences. Speak to your crowd and not your presentation.

5) Focus on bringing the positive thoughts to your words and not on how you are doing as a speaker. Enjoying your speech helps you deliver a compelling message.

You will enjoy speaking in front of a whole bunch of people if you always practice these effective public speaking tips.

Thanks to A Forever Recovery

Impress Your A Forever Recovery Audience