Public Speaking: Overcoming the Fear and Finding Your Voice

Communication skills play an important role in shaping your professional growth in today’s corporate world. The ability to speak confidently in public can make a huge difference even if you are presenting an idea, leading a meeting or speaking at a company’s event. However, some professionals fear speaking publicly they feel nervous which can limit their opportunities and growth potential at work.

In this blog, we will discuss how to overcome this fear and learn how to speak clearly and confidently in your professional life.

Why Public Speaking is Important in Corporate Jobs?

Public speaking is not just about giving big speeches on a stage. It also includes small and regular tasks like sharing updates during team meetings, explaining ideas to the managers and discussing plans with clients in a company. Furthermore, speaking during internal events or training sessions and leading the discussions where your opinion is required is also included in it.

The important thing is that when you speak clearly and confidently in such situations so people see you as a confident and dependable person. On the other hand, the people who avoid speaking may sometimes miss the opportunities to show their skills and take on new responsibilities.

Why Do People Fear Public Speaking?

It is crucial to understand why some people fear speaking publicly. Well, one common issue is that many people are afraid of being judged or criticised by others. On the other hand, overthinking and self-doubt can also make someone feel anxious.  Also, some people feel like they will forget what to say in the middle of their talk.

Others may have had a bad experience in the past which makes them even more nervous. Sometimes, people feel unsure because they are not confident in their language or pronunciation. That is why understanding the reasons behind your fear can help you to take the right steps to get better at speaking publicly.

How to Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking?

Now, we will discuss how to overcome the fear of public speaking.

Start with Small Steps

You should start speaking at the small meetings or informal gatherings without waiting for a big meeting. As the more you speak the better you will become at speaking publicly.

Prepare Before Speaking

You can practice speaking by yourself like you can just make a simple outline of what you want to say, write down the necessary things related to it and practice a few times before the meeting. It will help you to speak smoothly without fumbling.

Know Your Audience

You should think about who will listen to you as if you are talking to the senior managers so it is advisable to talk about the results and data. Similarly, if you are talking to the team then focus on the clear instructions and tasks.

Work on Your Body Language

Your body language speaks before you speak, it shows your confidence even if you are feeling nervous inside. That is why to feel more confident while speaking publicly, you should stand straight, keep eye contact and use your hands naturally.

Use Slides Only as Support

When you are using slides to present something in a meeting so you should not read everything from the slide as it can indicate that you are not fully prepared for the presentation and lack confidence as well. Thus, try to keep the slides simple and use them only to support what you are saying.

Be Ready for Questions

You should also be prepared for questions like if someone asks you something and you do not know the answer so it is okay to say that you will check it and reply later. It is always better to be honest rather than give a wrong, unsatisfactory or irrelevant answer.

Change Your Mindset

You should not be so harsh on yourself in order to speak perfectly in public. Let’s understand more:

Don’t Aim for Perfection

Understand one thing that nobody speaks perfectly as there can be little fumbling, errors, wrong vocabulary and whatnot. So, focus on giving your message clearly, not perfectly. You can use basic vocabulary and still appear confident to other people around you.  

Speak to Share, Not to Impress

Your primary goal should be to share useful information with your colleagues, managers and team. So, you should not think like you are in a competition and you have to win just focus on providing useful insights by using short, simple and clear sentences.

Appreciate Small Wins

Whenever you share your opinions in a meeting so try to speak without unnecessarily exaggerating the same sentence. As it can lead to embarrassment, you must keep your message concise and complete it without taking breaks. If you spoke continuously for more than 5 minutes, so appreciate it.

Simple Techniques to Feel Less Nervous

Here are some simple yet useful steps that can help you feel less nervous.

Breathe Deeply Before Speaking

You should take a deep breath before speaking as it calms your body and helps you to collect your thoughts in order to speak effectively.

Think Positive

Try to think positively as positive thoughts can reduce fear and increase your belief in yourself.

Practice in Front of a Mirror

You can practice speaking by speaking in front of a mirror. It can help you to improve your tone, body language and confidence while speaking.

Build Confidence Slowly

You have to practice speaking consistently to become confident while speaking in public, it is definitely not an overnight process.

Here are a few tips to stay consistent:

• You can volunteer to host the internal meetings.
• You can record your speech and listen to it and review it.
• You can simply observe other great speakers and learn from them.
• You can also practice by reading books aloud at home.

Even Top Leaders Faced This Fear

Do you know that Warren Buffett was terrified of public speaking early in his career? However, he overcame this fear by taking a course that he credits as “the most important degree I have.” Buffett has discussed this in interviews including a 2019 CNBC interview where he said that “You can improve your value by 50 per cent just by learning communication skills to improve your public speaking.”

Final Words

We have discussed that public speaking is a skill that plays a big role in professional life especially if you work in large companies. It’s normal to feel nervous but with small steps, regular practice and a clear mindset it becomes easier over time. Also, preparing well, understanding your audience and speaking with honesty can make a big difference. At Skills ally, we understand how important it is for professionals to build communication skills that actually help them at work. That is why we help the professionals strengthen these necessary skills with simple and useful guidance for real workplace needs.