COACH 101: ONLINE COACHING RESOURCES
How to overcome public speaking anxiety (part II)
If public speaking makes you really anxious, the typical advice telling you to ‘know your audience’, ‘rehearse’, and ‘breathe’ probably doesn’t do enough.
In the previous article, I covered four reasons that trigger your anxiety (with the corresponding solutions). If you missed it, I suggest you start by reading it first.
Here are the other three!
Summary of the first 4 reasons and self-rewiring strategies that I covered in the previous article:
- Don’t push to get rid of your fear, just go with it
- Focus on being there for your audience, Your first thought as you step on stage should be: ‘I am here for you’
- Practice compassion (If you judge and criticize, you expect being judged and criticized)
- Whenever you experience fear, tell yourself: ‘my brain and body are just helping me get ready for the action, no need to do anything about it.’
Reason 5. Are you telling yourself to calm down?
If you pay attention to your thoughts, you’ll probably observe that you are unconsciously telling yourself things like I am so nervous, I am so anxious, I am so scared…I need to relax, I need to calm down…
Self-Rewiring Strategy 5: Trick your brain and tell it how excited you are
Excitement is much closer to being nervous and afraid than to being relaxed in terms of arousal levels, so you can much more easily move from feeling afraid to excited than to feeling calm and relaxed, which are in the opposite end of the arousal spectrum. Instead of focusing on trying to relax, try the exact opposite. Convince your brain that you are very excited. Jump, dance, and sing before leaving home if you feel nervous, while you tell yourself : I am so exciteeed. Don’t worry, no one is looking 🙂 If you keep doing this, you will start feeling naturally excited over time.
Instead of trying to relax, try the exact opposite: I am SO EXCITED!
Reason 6. Are you choosing to be insecure?
As we walk our journeys through life, we pick labels from which we build our identities (e.g., I am shy, I am not good at this, I lack self-confidence…). It is important to understand that, whether consciously or unconsciously, the labels we pick to build our identities are a choice.
Self-Rewiring Strategy 6: Choose the opposite
As you choose to tell yourself I am shy, I am anxious, I am not good at this… you can just let go all these self-imposed labels and replace them by more helpful labels. Maybe you were raised in an environment where any display of confidence and lack of modesty were misunderstood as arrogance. Fair enough. If the education you received as a kid conflicts with your ability to become an awesome and confident speaker, well, change it. You are grown up now and should be fully accountable for the person you are today. Help your mind understand that confidence and arrogance are different concepts. Confidence is critical for success and you are certainly going to need it. Start telling yourself I am so good at this, for a change.
Confidence and arrogance are different: I am so good at this!
Reason 7. Do you believe that you can’t perform well because you are afraid?
You don’t necessarily need to get rid of your fear to do an amazing talk, unless you perceive these two things as incompatible. If you do, then they enter into conflict and you believe that because condition A exists, condition B is not possible (i.e., because you are afraid, you can’t do a good talk).
Self-Rewiring Strategy 7: Tell yourself you can be afraid AND do an amazing talk
Rather than approaching the situation with the proposition ‘If A, then not B’ think of it as ‘A AND B’. Tell yourself: I can be afraid AND do an amazing talk or I can be shy AND do an amazing talk.
I can be afraid AND do an amazing talk
FINAL THOUGHTS
To overcome public speaking anxiety, it is critical to understand and respect how your human brain and body function. The most important aspect to start flipping the coin is to acknowledge that fear is part of the human experience and it has all the right to be there with you. Instead of wasting all your energy in trying to fight your unpleasant emotions and physiological reactions, embrace them, and just go with them. Paradoxically, this will calm them down.
As you put these insights into practice, you will start growing true self-confidence. You will no longer be bothered by scary thoughts such as what if someone asks me something that I don’t know.
Speaking in public is not going to be about yourself anymore, but about your audience and what you want to share with them, and you will feel excited (genuinely excited) about having the opportunity to do so.
Worst case scenario, if you ever feel scared again, you will just tell yourself: I am proudly going with my fears, AND I will be great.
I am proudly going with my fears, AND I will be great.
Ready for a more intensive, fast, and effective process? Discover how the Conscious Self-Rewiring Coaching Method can accelerate your personal growth. Book a complimentary 30-minute discovery call with Dr. Laura to explore the Healthy Success Coaching program. Coaching sessions with Dr. Laura can be scheduled online and in person in Dubai and the UAE.