Fear of Speaking in Public.. Why No Advice Works and the Only Way to Overcome it

Urvashi Singh
Nov 5 · 6 min read
Photo by Marcos Luiz Photograph on Unsplash

I had prepared it all. I had spent hours and hours writing those words down, correcting myself, and then taking critical approval from my friends. I even wrote the opening greetings down, because I could not afford that one slip of the tongue. What would my audience say if I bumbled at those words? No, not a wise thing to do. I stood in front of the mirror and practiced it all. Without any indiscretion. I even did plenty of deep breathing exercises. Many out there say it works. I also tried listening to some cool music but the music didn’t get inside my ears. There was already a lot of mess inside my brain. I tried giving a good pep talk to myself. But, fell short of the words. I even visualized myself speaking eloquently with beaming face in front of the huge audience.

Nothing helped. I felt I had just stumbled down the Everest.

You might be efficiently handling the most critical situations out there. You might be playing it well on the ground. You might be crushing it, the whole of it, and walking with a set of brilliant stars on your sleeves. You might be handling the most disruptive lot of kids at home, or pupils in a classroom. Come what may, you manage it all so well. But, one thing whose unfriendly attitude towards you has always put you in trouble is mike, and though you don’t dread it, you just expect it to be more comfortable to be with.

Especially, when on the other side of mike are the hundreds of people waiting for you to say something. They don’t know what are you going to speak. Funny thing is even you don’t know what are you going to speak.

And if any lost messenger of God invited you to speak without any prior notice? Good Lord. Spontaneous speaking nearly causes nausea and fainting.

So I know every bit of it. All of it, you see. Because I am experienced. Experienced at failing to speak in public each time I was assigned that duty. I have so many moments of uncontrollable trembling, rising anxiety levels, and excessive fumbling with the words in my bag. It started in school where you had to be obedient if your teacher is assigning you a job, somehow escaped in college keeping a low profile, but could not evade it in my profession. You can’t say a no to your boss, can you? You would be counted as incompetent. I struggled with it for years.

Causes from my lens

Well, you would find so many reasons if you google ‘Fear of Public Speaking’. But, here are some which genuinely scared hell out of me.

  1. Low self-esteem: Has to be one. The fear of standing in front of so many people comes because you don’t think that you are enough. I used to feel this. Worrying about my clothes, my hair, every move, and constantly telling myself, “This isn’t going as planned. Something is wrong.”
  2. What will they think?: “Her English is terrible.” “She is not being able to connect.” “Oh, she doesn’t know how to pronounce this?” “Why is she up there?” What I did not realize, it was me saying those terrible things to myself. What others were saying never really fell into my ears. Sometimes I even used to think that I have altogether started talking in some other language, and my audience is all perplexed as to what is happening.
  3. Desire to be perfect: I had seen this actor in a video. She was up on the stage, walking like a mermaid dancing in the ocean. Her words flowing out of her mouth like a singer delivering her best performance. And the audience, they were awestruck, like me. I wanted to be like her, each time I was up on the stage. That thing called perfection, though not undesirable, induces a lot of undesirable things.

Solutions from my end

I would not talk highly of myself and say that I roar on the stage now, but yeah, I am pretty decent on the stage. Stylish too. At least, try to be one. I work on my voice modulation and body language now, since I don’t have to care about the ‘Fear’ part.

Face your fear

This is an arrow that will never miss its target. Your fear will be killed and buried, and you would not even get time to mourn it. Though, I did not do it deliberately. I don’t know what my boss noticed in me, but, for every big or small event, I was being put as the compere. To be honest, I dreaded it. To stand on the stage, trembling, struggling with my words and the mike. But I had to do it anyway, thinking I was being made fun of.

But it got easier with time. And I didn’t even realize it. I remember I had to host this international event, and just an hour before it had to start, I sat a couple of feet away from the podium, writing my speech(no mirror practice, no opening words, the fear in me was probably breathing its last). And while writing I was waiting for that usual fear to engulf me. It was a big event, with a huge number of attendees. I knew I had to be nervous. But, the event started, I took it through, and then it got over. But my wait didn’t. I surprised myself.

What they call, widening your comfort zone. I understood it then. Gratitude to my boss.

It is OK

Yes, It is ok, if you had that one slip of the tongue. It’s ok if it’s just you that others are not only looking at but paying attention to as well. It’s ok not to be perfect each time you are up there. It’s ok to go wrong at times. Because, it takes courage to stand on the stage and voice out your words, and who knows it better than you.

Dale Carnegie had once divulged the complexities faced by a public speaker. “There are three types of speech. The one that you practiced, the one that you gave, and the one you wish you gave.” This is enough for you to understand that we all are sailing in the same boat.

And the people you are worrying about have the same fear, most of them if not all. They too have sleepless nights before they finally take their place on the dais. Many of them empathize with you, if you feel disconnected. Many sing praises for you, if that one sentence comes right. So, in the crowd of kind and compassionate, it is easy to ignore the distracting ones. And that is what you must make yourself believe. You are better than many out there.

The more time you will spend with that mike, the more you will get comfortable with it. And one day, I promise, you will fall in love with the mike. The days in which it would feel amazing to talk to the audience, charm them with your flawless vocabulary, and hear those hundreds of pairs of hands coming together, only to applaud you.

All you need to do is just get up there and speak. Even when your legs are not supporting you. Even when you can hear the shivers in your voice. Even when you can’t find the right words. Just go and speak. Because you can’t afford to live with your fears for your whole life. They must come to an end.

During the last performance assessments at my workplace, my boss wrote me a feedback note. It said ‘the Leading Compere in all the events organized by the institution.’ My heart giggled reading that line, and I smiled. I had just climbed the Mount Everest.

Urvashi Singh

Written by

Teacher since a decade, Writer since my childhood, Reader since I touched books,Naive traveller exploring life and more. E-mail — urvashi03nov@gmail.com

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