Public speaking is rarely what we want it to be. More often than not fear, sweat and anxiety overwhelm us, leaving us shaking like a five-year old in front of a reprimanding teacher. The uneasiness that you experience before and during public speaking can make your presentation a big mess.
Don’t let a churning stomach and sweaty palms disrupt, or even worse, destroy your speech. While it’s not possible to completely eliminate your nervousness, improving your presentation skills is still possible once you learn a few tactics to control your nervousness.
Understand How Nervousness Manifests Itself
Unless you know what ruins your speech, how can you work on improving your presentation skills? The strange thing about speech nervousness is that it can take on different faces. It can be expressed through physical uneasiness, but it can also interfere with your language. People who are anxious about their speech often stammer, shake uncontrollably or have a squeaky voice, messing up their speech.
This is often a self-fulfilling prophecy: you focus so much on what might go wrong that you eventually make it happen. However, if you understand why and how your nervousness is expressed then you can easily learn to tame it and start improving your presentation skills.
Break Free From Your Nervousness
The first thing you should do is change your attitude towards public speaking. Understanding how deeply nervousness interferes with your public speaking success will give you a good perspective on how important it is to overcome it.
Control, Don’t Try To Eliminate
People set themselves up for failure when they try to completely eliminate their uneasiness. Even the most experienced, top-notch speakers will tell you they’re still feeling that subtle (or not so subtle) nervousness before their speech. And it’s fine too.
The key to adequately calming your nerves is to realize you cannot entirely and irreversibly eliminate them. Remember, improving your presentation skills means minimizing nervousness impact, not banishing it completely.
Be Prepared
Being fully prepared for you speech will sooth your nerves. You gain confidence when you know you can anticipate and handle any incidents during your speech. Get familiar with the speech room and its equipment. Network with your audience to remind yourself that they’re only human beings and not really that scary after all. Practice your speech until there’s no room for mistakes. Have alternatives for cases when something goes wrong, such as a forgotten point, a confusing conclusion, or a slide show being stuck.
Just Breathe
Being conscious of your breathing a few minutes before your speech will calm your nerves and give your lungs plenty of air to release all the built-up tension accumulated over the last few days. Deep breathing will improve your lung power and make you more alert thanks to better brain oxygenation.
Relax Your Mouth Muscles
Have you ever wondered why cats always seem so peaceful? They meow constantly. While you shouldn’t walk around your preparation area meowing around other speakers, you can still master the silent meow. This is something halfway between a yawn and a meow movement. Placing your hand over your mouth will conceal your trick of relaxing your mouth muscles for better articulation and freedom.