According to estimates, more than 50% of the world’s population suffers from the fear of public speaking, which is also known as Glossophobia or Public Speaking Anxiety. While you may not be able to completely eliminate your anxiety about stage fright, you can certainly improve it with public speaking courses. Let’s explore what stage fright in public speaking is, and why it is important to overcome it.
What is Stage Fright?
An individual who is about to perform on stage in front of a large audience might experience stage fright, a type of performance anxiety. Anyone who has never given a presentation in front of an audience may be affected.
Overcoming Stage Fright is important because:
- It negatively impacts an individual’s performance.
- It adversely affects their confidence during their performance.
- It acts as a barrier to their career development.
Therefore, it is essential to overcome the fear of public speaking for personal growth.
Why Public Speaking is Important?
Before we dive into the tips to overcome your fear, let us first understand why public speaking is important in an individual’s life:
Development of Communication and Leadership Skills
Public speaking helps you convey your ideas properly, which leads to the development of your leadership qualities. Preparing a speech, practicing it in different tones, and delivering it in front of an audience helps develop your communication skills.
Career Advancement
Public speaking helps improve critical thinking and research abilities and promotes creativity and professionalism. All these things can help you land your dream job.
Presentations and Meetings
No matter what sector you work in, you will have to give presentations to ensure the growth of your company and bring profit to it. Moreover, you may also be required to give a speech to motivate employees to work harder.
Helps Form Social Connections
Public speaking is a great platform to interact with people who share a common interest. After your performance, you might engage in conversations regarding your performance, making it easier for you to develop social connections.
Development of Critical Thinking
Public speaking helps develop your critical thinking and allows you to use your brain to its fullest. For instance, imagine you are giving a presentation and forget something. You can’t panic in that situation, but you have to come up with points and phrase them to end your pause. Allowing your brain to come up with something on the spot makes your brain work on its ability, thus improving your critical thinking.
5 Tips to Overcome Stage Fright
Here are five tips that you can use to calm your anxiety before stage fright comes to call:
- Know Your Topic
It is essential to know your topic thoroughly. The better you understand your topic, the more confident you will be, and the less likely you will make a mistake. Even if you get lost, you will be able to get back on track. It is also advisable to prepare a list of possible questions that the audience might ask and prepare your responses. Plan out the points that you would want to share and get your information organized. The more organized you are, the less nervous you will be.
- Practice Makes You Perfect!
The biggest reason for fear and anxiety is a lack of self-confidence. To enhance it, practice as much as you can. Practice in front of your family and friends and ask them to give you feedback. Don’t be shy to receive criticism from them. Work on your weaknesses and improve your performance.
Understand that we are all human and we all make mistakes. Get comfortable with this fact and then, you won’t focus on making a mess.
- Visualize Your Success
Positive thoughts help to get rid of negativity. This will also help you relieve your anxiety. So, visualize your success. Imagine that your performance goes well and you don’t make any mistakes. The more positive you are, the better prepared you will be for your performance.
- Focus on Your Material
People focus on the information and points that you are talking about, not on how it is presented. They might not even notice your nervousness.
In case you start feeling nervous and your mind goes blank, it might seem like you are not saying anything for a long time, but this is not true. It’s probably just a few seconds. Even if you take a pause, the audience won’t mind. Take a deep breath and start from where you left off.
- Greet Your Audience
It is important to establish a relationship with the audience to make them feel connected to your performance. You connect with your audience when you greet them. Greet your audience with a warm smile. Let them know that you are having a good time there. This makes the audience feel important.
Nervousness or anxiety is common in various situations and stage fright is not an exception. Overcoming Stage Fright requires patience and practice.
Jobs in Public Speaking
Public speaking is required in almost every job. If you have mastered the art of public speaking and have a certificate, there are a lot of career options for you. There are more than 1 million jobs in the sector of public speaking. Some of the areas of public speaking include journalism, public relations, human resources, marketing, event planning, and many more.
Overcoming Stage Fright with Online Courses!
If you suffer from stage fright, don’t worry, as we have got your back! Orator Academy offers online courses that help you ease anxiety and reduce your stage fright. The courses are designed by an expert, and they will guide you through every step.
