How to Overcome Speech Anxiety

Don’t be ashamed about your fear of public speaking…

Fear is a good thing and will help you to become a much better public speaker.

Plus, you’re not alone… Being required to speak on a given topic, in front of an audience, will scare the pants off even the most confident people.

You can use fear to your advantage: You can prepare like crazy. But it’s not the kind of preparation you might imagine.

When it comes to public speaking, most people spend hours and hours going over their slides; positive that if they just memorize all of their slides, they will be able to deliver a good presentation.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you want to deliver a good presentation, memorizing the slides is not going to help you.

You see, you may be able to memorize every slide, but you’ll sound robotic and nervous… The last thing you want is to seem nervous– you’re trying to overcome your fear after all.

Consider this:

The most confident conversationalists are people who can talk about any subject easily. You know the ones; the people that can keep an interesting conversation going no matter what the topic; there are no awkward silences in the conversation and they don’t need to consult notes to find out what to say next.

Know your topic

They just know what to say!

The best public speakers are not people who have memorized their slides.

They are people like the good conversationalists… they just know what to say.

Knowing what to say is a matter of taking the time to know the topic of the presentation inside-out.

Spend the time to really know what you want to say and predict the kinds of questions you may be asked.

Try rehearsing your presentation without slides. Focus on the information you want to get across to the audience rather than what is on the slides.

If you know your topic, and can present without slides, you will seem relaxed and confident during your presentation.