Conquering stage fright
Do you remember the part in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll in which Alice asked the king: “Where shall I begin, please, your majesty?” “Begin at the beginning,” the king said very gravely, “and go on ‘til you come to the end and then stop.”
This is good advice for Alice and for you as a public speaker.
Speech fright is a natural reaction. Some say that 75% of the population suffers with a fear of public speaking. The ultimate antidote for this natural fear is to prepare and practice.
When we talk about getting into The Zone, one of the things we emphasize is that we need to give our brain and body a cue to be calm and in control.
Here are a few tips and cues to help you overcome some of the nervous symptoms associated with the dread of presenting:
- Don’t drink any caffeine on the day of your presentation. Caffeine promotes anxiety and gives you a dry mouth.
- Avoid milk and milk products on the big day. Dairy products will coat your vocal chords and will create a lot of nervous throat clearing.
- Drink lots of water to cut down on “dry mouth syndrome.”
- If you find that you have “cotton mouth,” press your tongue firmly against the roof of mouth for a few seconds, which triggers a saliva release. Or think of a lemon and gently bite your tongue.
- Breathe deeply and calmly, hours before the presentation begins.
- Exercise vigorously the day of your presentation to burn up adrenaline.
- Accept and acknowledge speech fright. Then work with it, not against it. Harness it and use it to give your presentation an “edge”.
- Use visual aids in your presentation; then you know you will always have a “script” and can’t lose your way.
One of the ways of reducing fear is to consider yourself part of the audience rather than above them or disconnected from them. You are part of the human family first, then the company, then the presenter.
Audiences don’t expect perfection – they do expect you to be engaging, passionate and interactive. No audience has ever sat down and said to themselves, “By golly, the speaker better be perfect or I will reject them.” They have one need: not to be bored.
We feel we must play the role of the perfect presenter. The audience doesn’t put that role on us – we do. They want to be engaged and be given material that is interesting and important. We say, “We must be perfect”…. and those two goals are at odds.
The reality is …. You lose fear when you “own” your material. Most people in business don’t give themselves enough practice and rehearsal time to own their material. They rely too much on their PowerPoint slides, even “hiding” behind them, or deciding, as a defense mechanism against failure, to “shoot from the hip”, assuming a good presentation will happen spontaneously. But it won’t.
