27 Useful Tips To Overcome Your Fear Of Public Speaking

By Hon Taiwo Michael

 Public Speaking  fear of public speaking,  public speaking skills,  public speaking tips

The average person ranks the fear of public speaking higher than the fear of death. The truth is, this fear could be hurting your professional and personal life.

You may have been there before.

You feel nervous, your palms sweat, your stomach ties itself into knots. You don’t want to do it. You would rather do anything else than talk to someone.

Is this you?

In business, it is essentially important for you to be able to get your point across. It is likely that all of us will one day have to speak in public. Whether we are giving a formal presentation to an audience, or simply asking our boss for a promotion, speaking skills are essential to getting ahead in a professional setting.

The fear of public speaking is very real. However, there are techniques to help you overcome your fears. There are even ways to help harness your energy in a positive way.

Keep reading if you want to know how. . .

1) Get Organized

When you organize all of your thoughts and materials it helps you to become much more relaxed and calm. When you have clear, organized thoughts it can greatly reduce your speaking anxiety because you can better focus on the one thing at hand, giving a great speech.

2) Practice And Prepare Extensively

Nothing takes the place of practicing and preparing for your speech. Write out a script of your key points, but don’t speak from it word for word. Prepare for your speech so well that you could answer any possible question thrown at you.

Learn how to create a speech outline in 5 minutes so you can deliver your message with clarity.

3) Eliminate Fear Of Rejection

“What if my audience hates my speech? What if they boo me off stage?” Try to eliminate all of your fears of rejection. The audience is there to listen to you for a reason.

4) Focus On Patterns

When you speak try to get into a rhythm or a flow. Keep you sentences short and to the point and repeat key points. A short pause in between points can add anticipation to what you are going to say next.

5) Watch Yourself In The Mirror

Practice your speech in front of the mirror as if you were speaking directly to someone.

Pay attention to:

• Your facial expressions
• Your gestures
• Your body movements
• How welcoming you appear

When you have gentle expressions and a calm demeanor when you speak, you will be more welcoming to your audience.

6) Record Yourself And Learn Your Voice

Record your speech on your phone or video camera. Record yourself giving the talk from beginning to end. Then listen to it or watch it, and make notes on how you could make it better. Some people do not like listening to the sound of their voice on tape, so it is important that you get used to your own voice and speaking style.

7) Work On Your Breathing

When you focus on your breathing your voice will have more resonance and you will relax. Breathe calmly and focus on getting into a rhythm.

8) Practice Some More . . .

When someone asks me how he can build effective communication skills and improve his public speaking, I quote to him the words of Elbert Hubbard, who said, “The only way to learn to speak is to speak and speak, and speak and speak, and speak and speak and speak.”

9) Give Your Speech To Another Person

There are plenty of people you can practice on. Be sure to tell the person to be completely honest with you in their critique.

Examples of people you can practice on:

• Your significant other
• Your friends
• Your parents
• Your dog . . .

Speaking directly to another person will help relax you and give you experience with getting feedback from someone. If they have questions about your speech, it is likely that members of an audience will have the same questions.

10) Public Speaking Classes

Find a great coach or mentor. There are many groups that you can join to learn the art of public speaking. A group such as Toastmasters is non-profit and helps people get over their fears by having them practice speaking on subjects over and over.

11) Lightly Exercise Before Speaking

Exercising lightly before a presentation can get your blood circulating and send oxygen to your brain. Take a walk before a speech or do a few knee bends.

12) PowerPoint Can Be Really Great, Or Really Bad

Sometimes, having a powerpoint can be your best friend. It can help you if you lose your train of thought, keep your audience engaged, and give people a good place to grab notes and main points from.

However, do not put paragraphs and 1,670,987 other things on one slide. To learn how to create an impactful presentation here: 16 Tips to Create a Great PowerPoint Presentation.

13) Even Warren Buffett Had Public Speaking Anxiety At First

Photo: Stuart Isett/Fortune Most Powerful Women/Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Buffett got over his fears by teaching investing principles to people twice his age. He forced himself to talk to people. He practiced these skills over and over again. Read more about how Buffett overcame his public speaking fears.

14) Sip Water That’s Warm Or Room Temperature

Sometimes squeezing some lemon into you water helps as well. It helps lubricate your throat. Try to avoid sugary beverages before speaking. These can dry out your mouth and make it harder to talk.

15) Read Eloquence In Public Speaking By Dr. Kenneth McFarland

McFarland, who passed away in 1985, is also known as the “Dean of American Public Speakers,” and in his book he didn’t talk about methodology or technique at all.

His central message, which influenced me very strongly when I began speaking publicly, was that the key to eloquence is the emotional component that the speaker brings to the subject.

To put it another way, the starting point of being an excellent speaker is for you to really care about your subject.

16) Pick A Subject That You Really Care About

How to pick a subject that you really care about:

• The subject should have had an inordinate impact on you
• You want to share it with others
• You intensely feel others could benefit from your knowledge
• You can speak about it from the heart

When you speak about something you passionately care about you will be more comfortable and feel more confident in your element.

17) Know 100 Words For Every Word That You Speak

Ernest Hemingway wrote that, “In order to write well, you must know 10 words about the subject for every word that you write.  Otherwise, the reader will know that this is not true writing.”

I personally feel that, in speaking, you must know 100 words for every word that you speak.  Otherwise, your audience will have the sense that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

18) Focus On The Material, Not The Audience

Focus on delivering your material in the best way possible. Don’t worry about audience reactions.

19) Relax

When you let go of your stress and relax it eases your body and makes you less tense. Look at #24 for an interesting way that might help you to relax . . .

20) Don’t Overthink Audience Reactions

There is always going to be someone in the audience on their phone or yawning. Remember that there will always be people who are bored or tired. None of these audience reactions have anything to do with you personally.

21) Avoid Talking Too Fast

Talking fast during a speech interferes with your breathing patterns. If you talk to fast you will breathe less, and feeling short of breath will make you panicked. Practice slowing down when you speak, and you will be much more calm and relaxed.

22) Make Your Nervous Energy Work For You

Learn to channel your nervous energy into positive energy. Being nervous is a form of adrenaline. You can use it in a positive way to help give an impassioned presentation.

23) Pay Any Price And Spend Any Amount Of Time To Speak Well

Make a decision right now that you want to learn to speak and learn to speak well. Be willing to pay any price and go to any lengths to achieve your goal.

I have seen people leapfrog over others in their careers by overcoming their speaking anxiety. In the long run the better you are and the better you get at it the farther and farther you will go in your business career.

24) Meditate 5 Minutes A Day

Meditating can help clear your head of negative thoughts. In an article in Forbes, Dan Harris, co-anchor ofNightline and Good Morning America discussed his public speaking anxiety and how meditating for 5 minutes a day helped him to eradicate negative thoughts from his mind.

25) The Typical Compensation For A Public Speaking Event Is $4,500 To $7,500

Public speaking can be a great source of income. Here’s a video I made recently about speaking in 69 countries and how I began public speaking.

26) Have Pride In Your Work & Recognize Your Success

Your strongest critic is you. When you finish a speech or delivering a presentation, give yourself a pat on the back. You overcame your fears and you did it. Have pride in yourself.

27) Develop A Plan To Improve Your Next Speech

Practice makes perfect. If there is a video of your speech, watch it and make notes on how you can improve on it for next time.

• How do you think you did?
• Are there areas you think you could have improved?
• Did you seem stiff or make any weird facial expressions?
• Did you use a PowerPoint to your advantage? Did it help?
• Did you use “um” often?
• How was your rhythm?

Write everything down, keep practicing and improving. In time you will banish all of your fears of public speaking.

Conclusion

No longer are you one of the people who fears public speaking! I hope these tips were beneficial for you

Overcoming Fear of Failure

Facing Fears and Moving Forward - By Hon Taiwo Michael

Have you ever been so afraid of failing at something that you decided not to try it at all? Or has a fear of failure meant that, subconsciously, you undermined your own efforts to avoid the possibility of a larger failure?

Many of us have probably experienced this at one time or another. The fear of failing can be immobilizing – it can cause us to do nothing, and therefore resist moving forward. But when we allow fear to stop our forward progress in life, we're likely to miss some great opportunities along the way.

In this article, we'll examine fear of failure: what it means, what causes it, and how to overcome it to enjoy true success in work, and in life.

Causes of Fear of Failure

To find the causes of fear of failure, we first need to understand what "failure" actually means.

We all have different definitions of failure, simply because we all have different benchmarks, values, and belief systems. A failure to one person might simply be a great learning experience for someone else.

Many of us are afraid of failing, at least some of the time. But fear of failure (also called "atychiphobia") is when we allow that fear to stop us doing the things that can move us forward to achieve our goals.

Fear of failure can be linked to many causes. For instance, having critical or unsupportive parents is a cause for some people. Because they were routinely undermined or humiliated in childhood, they carry those negative feelings into adulthood.

Experiencing a traumatic event at some point in your life can also be a cause. For example, say that several years ago you gave an important presentation in front of a large group, and you did very poorly. The experience might have been so terrible that you became afraid of failing in other things. And you carry that fear even now, years later.

Signs of Fear of Failure

You might experience some of these symptoms if you have a fear of failure:

• A reluctance to try new things or get involved in challenging projects.
• Self-sabotage  – for example, procrastination, excessive anxiety , or a failure to follow through with goals.
• Low self-esteem or self-confidence  – commonly using negative statements such as "I'll never be good enough to get that promotion," or "I'm not smart enough to get on that team."
• Perfectionism  – A willingness to try only those things that you know you'll finish perfectly and successfully.

"Failure" – A Matter of Perspective

It's almost impossible to go through life without experiencing some kind of failure. People who do so probably live so cautiously that they go nowhere. Put simply, they're not really living at all.

Finding This Article Useful?

You can learn another 59 stress management skills, like this, by joining the Mind Tools Club.

The wonderful thing about failure is that it's entirely up to us to decide how to look at it.

We can choose to see failure as "the end of the world," or as proof of just how inadequate we are. Or, we can look at failure as the incredible learning experience that it often is. Every time we fail at something, we can choose to look for the lesson we're meant to learn. These lessons are very important; they're how we grow, and how we keep from making that same mistake again. Failures stop us only if we let them.

It's easy to find successful people who have experienced failure. For example:

• Michael Jordan is widely considered to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time. And yet, he was cut from his high school basketball team because his coach didn't think he had enough skill.
• Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest and most successful businessmen, was rejected by Harvard University.
• Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin empire, is a high school dropout.

Most of us will stumble and fall in life. Doors will get slammed in our faces, and we might make some bad decisions. But imagine if Michael Jordan had given up on his dream to play basketball when he was cut from that team. Imagine if Richard Branson had listened to the people who told him he'd never do anything worthwhile without a high school diploma.

Think of the opportunities you'll miss if you let your failures stop you.

Failure can also teach us things about ourselves that we would never have learned otherwise. For instance, failure can help you discover how strong a person you are. Failing at something can help you discover your truest friends, or help you find unexpected motivation to succeed.

Often, valuable insights come only after a failure. Accepting and learning from those insights is key to succeeding in life.

Overcoming Your Fear

It's important to realize that in everything we do, there's always a chance that we'll fail. Facing that chance, and embracing it, is not only courageous – it also gives us a fuller, more rewarding life.

However, here are a few ways to reduce the fear of failing:

• Analyze all potential outcomes – Many people experience fear of failure because they fear the unknown. Remove that fear by considering all of the potential outcomes of your decision. Our article Decision Trees  will teach you how to map possible outcomes visually.
• Learn to think more positively – Positive thinking is an incredibly powerful way to build self-confidence and neutralize self-sabotage. Our article Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking, and Positive Thinking is a comprehensive resource for learning how to change your thoughts.
• Look at the worse-case scenario – In some cases, the worst case scenario may be genuinely disastrous, and it may be perfectly rational to fear failure. In other cases, however, this worst case may actually not be that bad, and recognizing this can help.
• Have a contingency plan  – If you're afraid of failing at something, having a "Plan B" in place can help you feel more confident about moving forward.

Using Goal Setting

If you are afraid of failure, you might be uncomfortable setting goals . But goals help us define where we want to go in life. Without goals, we have no sure destination.

Many experts recommend visualization  as a powerful tool for goal setting. Imagining how life will be after you've reached your goal is a great motivator to keep you moving forward.

However, visualization might produce the opposite results in people who have a fear of failure. Researchshows that people who have a fear of failure were often left in a strong negative mood after being asked to visualize goals and goal attainment.

So, what can you do instead?

Start by setting a few small goals . These should be goals that are slightly, but not overwhelmingly, challenging. Think of these goals as "early wins" that are designed to help boost your confidence.

For example, if you've been too afraid to talk to the new department head (who has the power to give you the promotion you want), then make that your first goal. Plan to stop by her office during the next week to introduce yourself.

Or, imagine that you've dreamed of returning to school to get your MBA, but you're convinced that you're not smart enough to be accepted into business school. Set a goal to talk with a school counselor or admissions officer to see what's required for admission.

Try to make your goals tiny steps on the route to much bigger goals. Don't focus on the end picture: getting the promotion, or graduating with an MBA. Just focus on the next step: introducing yourself to the department head, and talking to an admissions officer. That's it.

Taking one small step at a time will help build your confidence, keep you moving forward, and prevent you from getting overwhelmed with visions of your final goal.

Note:

Sometimes, being afraid of failure can be a symptom of a more serious mental health condition. If it affects your day-to-day life, it's important to speak with your doctor to get advice.

Key Points

Many of us are sometimes afraid of failing, but we mustn't let that fear stop us from moving forward.

Fear of failure can have several causes: from childhood events to mistakes we've made in our adult lives. It's important to realize that we always have a choice: we can choose to be afraid, or we can choose not to be.

Start by setting small goals that will help build your confidence. Learn how to explore and evaluate all possible outcomes rationally and develop contingency plans; and practice thinking positively. By moving forward slowly but steadily, you'll begin to overcome your fear.

6 Positive Ways To Overcome Your Fear Of Death

By Hon Taiwo Michael

We’ve lived good lives. At this point, we should be able to look back and count our blessings. After all, we have created a community of friends, relatives and colleagues that stretch out more than 50 years. Most of us are excited about the many decades of life that we have ahead of us — decades that we want to fill with the passions, people and places that matter to us.

At the same time, as we reach our 50s, it’s common to start worrying about our mortality. Many of us begin to think about the fact that we may have fewer years ahead of us than behind. Some may even come to fear death, no matter how far it is in the future.

Talking with the members of Sixty and Me and Boomerly, I am always amazed how some people are afraid of death, while others find it easy to accept their mortality. So, to help those of you who have a fear of death, I asked them for their advice.

Here are a few tips, based on the advice of other people over 50 who have conquered their fear of dying.

Take Control of Your Life

Spend quality time with the people you enjoy being around. Try new things. Challenge yourself. Most of all, keep active and engaged with positive activities. If there is something that really rankles you — do something about it! If you have unfinished business — take care of it! If you have someone you need to speak with — make the call!

Don’t keep going to a job that is deeply dissatisfying, or stay in a relationship that makes you unhappy. You have many years to enjoy everything that life has to offer. Who you spend your time with matters!

The fear of death is often the fear of not living on your own terms. You deserve to see your dreams come true. The more you embrace life, the less frightened you will feel about giving it up when the time comes!

Learn to Accept that Death is Natural

It helps to recognize ourselves as part of a great cycle and find comfort in the fact that everyone else must go through the same thresholds: conception, birth and death.

Near-death researcher Norman Van Rooy once said, “Like the child being born, we have no choice but to yield ourselves to the unknown.” You can choose to view your body and your contribution to this world as an honor. We have had the privilege of living; so, let’s be grateful and accept death when it eventually comes.

Read the Available Literature and Self-Help Guides About Death

Many writers have shared their own ruminations and musings on the subject of death. Also, religious leaders, philosophers and mystics have built a magnificent library on the subject of the afterlife. Their works may not tell you, with certainty, what happens after you die. But, they may help you to tackle the equally important questions of why we are here and how we should prepare for the afterlife.

Adopt Rituals and Explore Spirituality

Whether you are religious or not, rituals are important for creating a sense of meaning in life. They also give continuity to our existence.

A ritual can be as simple as taking a walk every afternoon or lighting a candle each morning. You can recognize a seasonal change or something emotional or physical happening in your life. The choice is completely yours.

If you are curious about your family’s religious practices or want to explore new spiritual ideas, now is the time. Don’t be afraid to ask the “tough” questions about the afterlife. These are the only questions with the potential to guide you to a deeper understanding of your faith - or any aspect of your life, for that matter.

Focus on Living Well

There are so many simple things that you can do to live a healthier and more positive life. In fact, sometimes the smallest steps, applied consistently, lead to the biggest changes. Make a commitment to walk every day, rain or shine. Explore your passions. Write a “bucket list” with all of the amazing things that you want to do before you die. If you are busy living, you won’t have time to worry about dying.

Plan for Your Passing

Many of the questions that we have about dying are religious or philosophical in nature. But, what about the practical concerns? Many of us worry about dying because we wonder what will happen to our family after we are gone. Will our grandchildren be happy? Will our spouse be able to recover from our passing? If so, will they have enough money to continue to live the kind of life that they deserve? 

These are all valid questions. The good news is that, while we can’t control when or how we leave this world, we can control much of what we leave behind. Many people feel a sense of relief when they get their affairs in order - even if they have many decades of healthy life ahead of them. They know that, should the unexpected happen, their wishes will be clear and their legacy secure.

At the end of the day, the advice from other people over 50 who have conquered their fear of death is simple: focus on living authentically, passionately and well. A fear of death cannot take root in the heart of a person who is truly satisfied with their life.

Are you afraid of death? Why or why not? What advice would you give to a friend who is struggling with a fear of death? Please join the conversation and “like” and share this article to keep the conversation going.