Building confidence in public speaking
True life: Sweaty palms, shaking hands, lost for words?
You think to yourself; how bad can giving a talk to 200 people be? They are just normal random people, right?
In theory, yes, that’s all they are. But in practice, they are people who you feel will judge you, slate you and maybe even throw a rotten tomato your way.
My first public speaking event was at a suicide conference as a volunteer. I was going to talk to over 200 people. In the moments leading up to my talk my stomach was turning; I felt ill and it felt like my heart was beating 500 miles per hour. Suddenly before I knew it, my name was being called and I had to go up on stage.
I stood there looking out into the crowd of 200 people staring back at me, wondering what I was going to say. I picked up my speech but my hands were shaking so badly I had to put it back down and start reading it from the desk.
Ten seconds into the speech my leg started to shake. This made my whole body shake. Thank God there was a podium in front of me so nobody could see just how terrified I was.
I was about a minute into the speech when I looked up at the crowd and paused for a second. Nobody was jeering me, nobody had a disgusted face, and nobody had rotten fruit ready to throw at me. This was going well. My leg stopped shaking and then I picked up my speech. My hands had stopped shaking. I could not believe it.
My confidence started to build up and before I knew it I was finished. As I said my final words, I looked up and people were clapping and smiling. I could clearly see they had enjoyed my talk. Walking down from the stage I felt amazing. It was like an adrenaline rush and I wanted more. I could have got back up on stage and done it all over again, heck I could have talked to about one million people and it wouldn’t have affected me.
Later on that day, I reflected on how the talk went. I couldn’t believe how much pressure I had put on myself. The fact is people do not have any expectations from you. They are interested in what you have to say and they do not want to see you fail.
As human beings we put pressure on ourselves to succeed. We try to be the best. We try to live up to expectations that do not exist. When it comes to public speaking these expectations remain.
I have gone on to do dozens of conferences, talked at many workshops and given zillions of college presentations and it is always the same. I get the butterflies in my stomach just before I talk, but as soon as I say my first word they all go. Just before you say your first word, take a deep breath and be confident.
Check out the public speaking pointers!
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