How To Relieve Performance Anxiety (Public Speaking)

Most people would rather do anything else but have to get up in front of an audience and speak. It is one of the most confronting and stressful things and most of us, no matter how we try to avoid it, will have to do it from time to time. Performance anxiety (public speaking) can be overcome if you follow some of these simple steps.

When you want to get over your performance anxiety (public speaking) one of the best things you can do is really know your topic. If you are totally prepared and have tried to predict any questions that might be thrown at you, then you will do just fine. Preparation and practise are the key. You do not have to have your responses and speech memorized to the word, but knowing all your key points is essential to a good presentation.

Visual prompts such as PowerPoint or flip charts are a fantastic way to keep your points at the fore of your mind and also to divert attention from yourself. Fewer eyes will be directly on you when you use visual prompts, which takes quite a lot of the pressure off your performance.

In order to make you feel less alone up there in front of everybody…apos;s gaze having something in your hand can make you feel more confident. It could be something like a white board pen or a computer control for your PowerPoint presentation. Tactile things can help you in much the same way that children sometimes have toy animals or blankets for security.

Depending on the type of presentation you have to give it can be a great idea to get the audience participating immediately and take the focus off yourself. An icebreaker at the beginning of the presentation where the audience needs to interact with each other can take some of the formality off the situation and put you and them more at ease.

Performance anxiety (public speaking) is a super common thing to experience. With practise you will get better, but in the meantime by implementing the above advice you can survive the experience without coming out in a cold sweat.

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