Are you afraid to speak in public?

Imagine the situation, you are standing before an audience of several dozen people about to start your speech. You start to feel the adrenaline rush, your heart is pounding, your hands are sweating and your voice shakes… You feel extremely exposed, vulnerable and evaluated. You quickly go from insecurity to fear.

Increasingly, public speaking is a necessity, from participating in an informal meeting to raising our disagreement with any group. And in the professional field even more so we need to communicate in public, we often have to participate in work groups, meetings and make presentations or presentations.

According to a study by the University of California, one in three people (75%) suffers from fear of speaking in public, this fear, in its most extreme form, becomes “glossophobia” a phobia with a higher incidence even than aversion spiders or panic to fly.

And is that in the "ranking" of fears, public speaking occupies the first place, even above the fear of death, which occupies the fourth. These data led Jerry Seinfeld (American humorist) to the conclusion that at a funeral most of the attendees would rather be in the coffin than delivering the funeral speech.

Scared of speaking in public

Why is it so difficult?

Our brain is programmed to survive and, for this, one of the mechanisms that follows is to detect dangers. When we are faced with a group of people who observe us, our limbic brain automatically interprets it as a danger, therefore, the physical reaction does not take long.

We are born with this mechanism and it is natural to feel anxiety when we have to speak in public, it is part of our emotional brain. This anxiety at reasonable levels can help us to be better prepared because adrenaline gives us an extra dose of energy and makes us more alert.

The problem arises when this fear is unleashed and paralyzes us, when we want to “run away” or be invisible because, inevitably, our audience will detect it and our message will go to the background.

What is behind this desire to run away?

Many times it comes from the fear of criticism, of being negatively evaluated, of failure, of not being able to demonstrate our skills, of possible negative reactions from our audience, of loss of prestige…

According to some authors (R. Santandreu) we are afraid because we feel insecure when we seek the appreciation, respect and acceptance of others. But is the opinion of others so important to us?

What would happen if a presentation did not turn out as we expected? Would something really terrible happen?

Hop up

Nobody is born being a great speaker, in the same way that nobody is born knowing how to walk, if when we start to take our first steps we get discouraged, nobody would be able to achieve it.

One of the keys to dealing with this difficulty is to start practicing as soon as possible. Stop avoiding this type of situation, hiding and going unnoticed and showing ourselves as we are. It is a matter of exercising the muscle of confidence, in ourselves and in our audience.

Believe it

What dialogue do you have with yourself? It is very different to start talking with an "I can" in mind than a "I'm going to be fatal."

If you want to flow and transmit authenticity it is to base that you believe what you are saying. Your voice and body transmit at least as much as the content of your speech (it is said that non-verbal communication occupies 93% of the message).

In relation to the public, what will help you the most, consider it an enemy or as a group of people interested in what you have to explain?

It is often useful to raise interventions from the point of view of the service we provide to our audience. If we think about what we are going to contribute to others, how we can contribute with our words, we will divert our attention from ourselves and relieve our tension.

By improving our self-confidence, it is very possible that little by little the fear of public speaking is minimized. A work of personal self-knowledge will allow us to commit to our development and take control of our life connecting with our authenticity. Every time we face a new challenge, like public speaking, we are giving ourselves the opportunity to improve.