The majority of clients that come to Accents are held hostage by their fear of public speaking. In a group of 10, usually 8 or 9 people will suffer from excessive nerves. They complain:

“I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t access the words!”
“Instead of sounding confident and credible, I sounded unprepared and foolish – I feel so humiliated!’
“I couldn’t breathe and stammered and stumbled my way through the presentation.”

What is it about public speaking that makes us so terrified? Perhaps it is the fear that we may be judged and not meet the expectations of an audience? Perhaps we are at the mercy of our ‘inner critic’ who finds us wanting and tell us we are not good enough? We want to deliver the ‘perfect’ presentation and use the words that will impress our audience, but in that moment, we cannot remember them.

As Matt Abrahams says in his excellent talk on anxiety management, No Freaking Speaking https://youtu.be/5naThX63pF0, the fear of public speaking is something we can learn to manage. Anxiety is not something we want to ‘get rid of’, as it gives us energy and helps us to focus and tells us that what we are doing is important. One of his most useful tips is reminding us to see our presentation as a ‘conversation’ rather than a ‘performance’. This shifts the focus off ‘getting it right’ to ‘getting the point across effectively’. We are sharing what we know with the audience.

Thorough preparation is the obvious way to assist our nerves. However, even though we may have prepared really well, our nerves can hijack our presentation. This is called the ‘amygdala hijack’ – a term first used by psychologist Daniel Goleman in his book on Emotional Intelligence. This is an intense emotional reaction out of proportion to the actual circumstance. Our extreme anxiety impairs the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain that regulates rational thought. (https://psychcentral.com/health/amygdala-hijack#the-amygdala) The rational brain is bypassed and signals are sent to the ‘emotional brain’ resulting the fight, flight or freeze response. Any of these impairs our effectiveness in public speaking, as we start speaking ‘at’ the audience instead of ‘to’ the audience (fight); as we rush through our presentation as quickly as possible (flight) or we cannot remember what to say (freeze).

The first step in being able to manage and control our fear is to face it head-on and understand how it operates. What are some of the physical symptoms you display when you are nervous? Does your mouth dry up or does fear make you perspire excessively? What temperature is the fear? Starting to confront your fear and understand how it operates within your physical body is an important first step. We can then see and recognize the fear and welcome it as an ‘old friend’.

Secondly, we need to apply some practical strategies to control the fear. Learning to use deep breathing is an important and valuable tool. Remember to try and exhale, as many people fall into the trap of too much inhalation, without exhaling which results in breathlessness. Telling someone to ‘just breathe’ is not very helpful as one needs to learn how to breath in that moment. https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/breathing-exercises-anxiety/

Nerves are not something that goes away with time or age – they will always be with us. We need to find a way to manage and control the nerves. As Martha Beck says in her excellent book: Finding Your Own North Star 2001: “The difference between success and failure isn’t the absence of fear but the determination to pursue your heart’s desires no matter how scared you are. Finally you’ll realise that fear is the raw material from which courage is manufactured. Without it we wouldn’t even know what it means to be brave.”

For more on how to manage speech anxiety visit: https://accents.co.za/public-speaking/