We all experience Presentation Anxiety from time to time. But instead of fleeing the scene, it’s better to find a way to handle and overcome your fear of public speaking. Check out these five tips to managing Presentation Anxiety.
By Phil Stella
It’s the day of the meeting where you have to talk to the group, you’ve been asked to present at a conference, or you’ve agreed to give a toast at your friend’s wedding. For many of you, public speaking is part of the job – and even sometimes part of your personal life.
But, how many of you experience pain when you deliver presentations at work? How many hate speaking in public? Do you feel sweaty and nauseous and like you can’t catch your breath? Do you find yourself actually planning an exit to hide in the bathroom or faking an emergency?
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I think this applies to quite a large number of people, but speaking in public isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s best to find a way to handle it instead of avoiding. So, let’s discuss five simple steps for managing your Presentation Anxiety (PA).
Step no. 1: Recognize how common it is to experience PA. The first step in managing PA is to understand how many people experience it on a regular basis. This is not something that only happens to you or a small handful of people. It’s actually a perfectly normal human feeling and quite common. Everyone has some degree of PA; it’s a reaction to stress and fear. And we certainly all have stress and fear! Understanding that can help you take a deep breath and relax, knowing there are likely many people in your audience who regularly experience PA.
Step no. 2: Realize that PA doesn’t have a singular cause. We can’t pinpoint only one variable that causes PA. It’s the result of a number of different and separate factors that vary by person and situation. It’s possible to take specific actions to reduce their impact. Begin by clearly identifying each specific factor you think causes your level of PA, like fear of forgetting or fear of audience questions.
Step no. 3: Reduce the impact of each cause. For each of the specific causes you identified, consider what simple steps you can take to reduce or minimize their impact? To minimize the fear of forgetting, practice enough to remember most of your content and create simple, easy-to-read speaker notes to remind you of the rest. Minimize the fear of audience questions by anticipating the obvious ones and creating short clear answers for them. Address each of these factors individually so that you aren’t overwhelmed by their totality. When you go one by one and think about your “worst-case scenarios,” you can kick out each bad thought individually and/or come up with a plan to combat it.
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Step no. 4: Mask signs of PA during your presentation. No matter what you do, you will still have some level of PA sneaking in while you’re speaking in public – everyone does! But, it’s possible to mask any outward indications of PA that show up in your vocal and physical delivery. Pause more and longer. Smile more often. Sustain eye contact longer. Avoid those movements or gestures that make you appear nervous (such as playing with your hair, fiddling with a pencil or other object, shifting back and forth on your feet, etc). If you look and sound confident to your audience, then you are confident. Their perception is your reality!
Step no. 5: Look like you’re having fun! This might sound hard – and it might actually be challenging to appear like you’re having fun, at first. But the more you smile, joke around, become animated and outgoing – maybe even adlib – the more you actually WILL start having fun. Afterall, your perception is your reality, too. So, there you have five simple strategies for managing Presentation Anxiety. Best wishes for presenting with more confidence and less pain.
Phil Stella runs Effective Training & Communication, www.communicate-confidently.com, 440 804-4785, and empowers business leaders to reduce the pain with workplace communication and sales pitches A popular trainer and executive coach on writing, communication styles and sales presentations, he is also on the Cleveland faculty of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program.
