Public speaking and Nerves

A fear of public speaking is an extremely common anxiety, ranging from slight nerves and sweat to shaking and full on paralysing fear. The latter I have quite a lot of experience with.

At this point I’ve done a few public speaking gigs, I still struggle with a lot of fear but when I first spoke publicly god I shat myself to say the least. I went on BBC merseyside talking about a recent blog I wrote for The Learning Foundry (which you can view by clicking here). I went to talk about my journey from GCSE’s to now and coping with ADHD. I went not thinking too much into it but when I got there oh god it hit me. I was about to go on the radio, talk about myself, promote a business. Oh god, how am I going to do this? Is it warm in here? I need a drink.

I was panicking, the nerves hit me bad, so did my own self doubt. I wish I had prepared, I should’ve done this and that, and what about this?! So many things were running into my mind.

The interview went okay, I still don’t think it was the best now, but you know what, look how far I’ve come. In school I was always known for being quiet, I would’nt raise my hand, couldn’t talk to people, was known as that typical shy kid. The fact that I had the courage to do this at all was such a huge step for me! since that first interview so many more opportunities have come my way in terms of public speaking, its still terrifying every time I do it, I shake and I stumble.

There are so many things I wish I knew when I had that first interview, we all have our different strategies but here’s some things that might help you collaborate with your nerves:

Know what you’re talking about

Preparing and knowing what you’re talking about is an obvious one but this was a big one for me. Knowing what you’re going to talk about is key, have key points you want to cover in your speech, you will never go off a speech word for word no matter how much you prepare, but having key points you want to cover is essential, and if you do go off track, both knowing and having these key points helps you get back on track a lot faster. Know also what your audience wants to hear. Who is your audience? Do you have a unique standpoint that they might not have heard? What questions might they want to ask you? Keep these key points in mind when preparing your subject.

Engage with your audience (if you can)

Any chance you get you should be trying to engage with your audience, ask them questions, op en up the floor not just at the end of a session. Speak with your audience in mind, like the first point, what do they want to hear? Speak like you’re speaking with them if you want to go for a more personal approach. Use clear plain language, even executives might not know some of these fancy words you include in your speech and it might disengage your audience.

Perfection

Perfection is bull***t, simply put. I had a good piece of advice at the last talk I went to, by this random guy no less so I can’t even credit him. We were talking about the speech I just gave and talking about how I had progressed. My last talk wasn’t perfect and I told him I felt that, he said “we’re all our own worst critics, but you shouldn’t strive for perfection, just try and improve on the time before that” and I honestly hadn’t though about it like that before, I had always strived for such perfection in anything I did that if one singular thing went wrong I would beat myself up so much about it. With the outlook that guy gave me, I am proud of myself, even when things don’t go to plan. Presentation went awful? At least I didn’t cry afterwards this time! Just strive for improvement, not perfection.

At least you didn’t shit yourself

An inside joke in work, but a good point. Don’t get in your own head with all these outcomes that could go wrong, none of that’s going to happen, an if it does… at least you didn’t shit yourself, hopefully. We can only prepare for what we can control, think to yourself, can I reaslitically stop this from happening, if yes then go ahead and try to prepare for that outcome. If no, then there’s nothing you can do, you will deal with a situation in your own way, you will have support and all you can realsitically can do is be adaptable.

Fear means you care, for one reason or another it shows you care, use that to your advantage. I heard that from my dad a while back, it seems like useless general advice but it helps, utlise your fear, be open with it and turn it into showing your passion, do it your way whatever that might be. You go this ❤

Listen to my BBC interview here: