Fear of the audience

According to surveys, the fear of public speaking is second only to the fear of death.

Fear is the most dangerous «dragon» on the speaker’s path. No matter how carefully you prepare your speech, fear can turn it into a pitiful sight.

Shaking hands and feet. Intermittent breathing. Confusion in thought. Sweaty palms. Trembling, breaking voice. Running glance…

Brrr. God forbid to be in this terrible dream!

Fear nullifies the many hours of effort of teachers. The voice, which, it would seem, just yesterday sounded strong and confident in the teacher’s office, on stage, in front of the public, again becomes stifled and barely audible.

There is no escape from the fight with fear. However, it is much more effective not to run away, but to gain courage and take a step towards him.

But since fear has many faces, it is necessary to know from which side to approach it, with what weapon to fight it.

Or — what gift can you lure this dragon to your side.

To combat fear, there are effective techniques, the main of which we will now analyze.

Choose from this arsenal those strategies that will work well for you!

Overcoming fear by managing your condition

It is important to remember that fear is not always the speaker’s most formidable enemy.

Much more dangerous and even deadly for your performance can be such states as indifference, boredom, lethargy, when you need to be bright, igniting, inspiring.

Or, conversely, excessive excitement and energy — where you need to be calm, solid, serious and balanced.

And people are quick-witted very soon instead of the question «how to overcome the fear of the audience?» they begin to explore “how to evoke within themselves the emotional state necessary for performance.”

Indeed, a holy place is never empty. Once we have driven fear out of our souls, any other emotion can take its place, often even less suitable for performance than excitement.

Fill your soul, like a vessel, with the right emotion! And fear, seeing that the place is already taken, will be forced to go home.

Let’s move on from metaphors to techniques and exercises that allow you to manage your condition.

So, our task is to learn how to change our emotional state at the click of a finger, as if by magic.

Can you imagine? They snapped one finger and became confident and assertive. They clicked another finger — they became cheerful and lively. They clicked the third — they became solid and serious!

As much as possible?

Fear of the audience is overcome by constant practice

To speak, to speak and to speak again … At every opportunity. To get up and talk in public for your body was as familiar as washing and brushing your teeth in the morning. As practice shows, it is enough to successfully perform 10-20 times for the fear of the unknown to come to naught.

Now this is already developed territory. Now this is familiar territory. Now I already know that there is nothing terrible here. Now I can already predict the development of events in this situation. The word «successful» is not accidental here. If the performance experience was unsuccessful, if you were booed, pelted with tomatoes, or ignored, then the fear of a subsequent performance can only increase. And often, in order to clear the rubble after such unsuccessful performances, the help of a psychotherapist is required.

Therefore, it is better to gain experience in public speaking where you are guaranteed a friendly atmosphere.

Bodywork to overcome fear

Fear first strikes our body, hampering gestures, giving us a ridiculous posture, holding our breath. So let’s start with our body. Free him from the signs of fear! →

Dealing with Fear with Inner Dialogue

One of the differences between humans and animals is that humans constantly talk to themselves using such an evolutionary tool as an internal dialogue (we exclude those who have achieved enlightenment from this list!) See →

Overcoming Fear with Imagination

As they say, all diseases are from the nerves. Most fears, including the fear of public speaking, we create ourselves. But if we were able to do something with our thoughts that caused our fear, in the same way we can create in our imagination something that will return us peace, strength and energy! See →

Activate positive emotions

Fear is primarily an emotion. By activating other — positive — emotions, you can easily cope with the fear of the audience. See →

With difficult problems we go to a psychologist

Of course, in our culture it is not yet customary to work through your problems with a psychologist, as is customary in the West, where it is already considered good manners to visit a personal psychotherapist once a week. But nevertheless, it can be a good and effective way to solve deep-rooted problems that have arisen in the past, but prevent successful performance in the present. See →

We do «unusual things»

How I would like freedom! Inner freedom from what others think! Freedom, which gives lightness, looseness, naturalness, courage, drive. This feeling is easy to get if you try to do «non-standard actions.» See →

In order not to get confused in the variety of techniques, we present the plan of this chapter in the form of a mind map