In my last post on public address sytems, i made a little mention of my experience in public speaking (That was more techy though).
I remember the first time I was to address an audience of about 1000 people, at the time I was about to climb the stage. I was not only sweating in my feet but I was also sweating in my palm , different thoughts were running through my head.
I felt the whole crowd would want to attack me , I thought the whole crowd was on the lookout or my errors. I also had this feeling the I was going to make some very terrible grammatical blunder and the whole audience would laugh at me or my poor usage of English , by the time I was through with those thoughts , I was already sweating on my face too it was as if my whole world was experiencing world war three.
Who should I hold wrong for the thoughts in my head?
Sometimes ,we fail to realize that our brain isn't as intelligent as science claims it is and i say this because of the fact that our brain can't differentiate the difference what is real and imagined.
All what happened to me to me was only real in my imaginations but was not real in this physical but i felt the impact here and now. Our brain reacts to both imagination and reality the same way .
That the audience was prepared to pick out my errors was so wrong in fact some of them were so eager to learn ,but my brain processed danger ,so it began to sweat and anxiety sets in .
Anxiety (The major deal)
Its a major issue to deal with , when this aggraveates for a public speaker if its not well managed could make the public speaking flop. Its actually something that can be controlled by proper mindset and orientation. The power lies in your mind. We will discuss this later on.
Could you believe that the following people had suffered from stage fright?
Warren Buffet couldn't even stand up before his colleague to tell them his name, it was that bad, yes, I mean the Warren buffet you know. At age 21, he realized that as a stoke broker, he had to choice, to face his fears or run away from it.
Would you believe that Joel Osteen suffered from this same issue?
Joel gave his first sermon and said ," he was scared to death" , obviously, it was a reaction from his brain ,as Darwin said " even though humans are creatively intelligent ,they still flow with the primitive way of thinking " -paraphrased
That is, we respond to our situation with either fight or flight response which is a physiological reaction to something we perceive as threats which was what to prepare us to either fight or flee.
Mahatma Gandhi of India who led close to 200 million Indians to independence without violence didn’t start so bold, he started as someone who couldn’t even speak up to three statements in the public, it was that bad.
There was this time ,he wanted to read a speech to an audience ,he read the first line and was stuck, he couldn't finish it up, someone else had to help him out. You should be amazed by now and angry about how bad and embarrassing stage fright could be.
Thomas Jefferson, yes even him, America’s third president, he was one of the founding fathers of the great USA but he once suffered from stage fright, in history it was written about him that he had this acute fear that psychiatrists at Duke university even said he suffered from social phobia.
While he served ,he only gave just two remarkable speeches in a period of 8years..while in congress people said he hardly spoke three sentences .
From the cited examples, we see that stage fright is obviously an age long problem in every generation and it cuts across different race and colors of the world.
Stage fright affected even the greatest leaders of all times, but they overcame it so anyone can overcome stage fright.
OVERCOMING STAGE FRIGHT
Before I talk about that, What are the major kinds of stage fright?
One, the fear that you won't be able to perform up to expectation which is only a thought that runs in your head ,not necessarily true.
Second, is the fear that the audience won't accept what you’re bringing to the table .
All of the kinds of stage fright are not real, they only exist in the head of the speaker. It’s a mind thing and it has to be settled intellectually.
Lets flow.
WHAT COULD CAUSE STAGE FRIGHTS?
The first thing we talk about here is Low self esteem;
A lot of people doesn’t believe in their self; they don't believe they can do so much
when it comes to speaking in public, something in their minds informs them how that they can do this and since our brain can’t differentiate between reality and imagination, it picks that wrong thoughts up and those people become scared of the stage.
Another major reason for this could be Self-consciousness
When you're too conscious of yourself, you don’t want to make mistake. You are too aware of the fact that you want to speak to millions of people and you suddenly realized you have your friends in the audience.
You also suddenly realized there is a professor of English on seat, you then suddenly remember how terribly you used to be in English in high school and you flunked English exams in college.
All these realities, once you begin to think them, you brain accept them as true and process them as a reality and the next thing it wants to do is to fight or flee.
Hey!!! You need to realize that speaking to people is more about the people than yourself.
There might also exist a situation of concern that others will judge you.
This is a common theme in the issues of stage fright, a lot of people always had this premonition before they to the stage that someone out is really ready for them wanting to pick all of their errors out.
This thought sends a thought to the brain and panic starts ,since our brain isn't that intelligent enough to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not real so, our brain react to the threat as if it was real. So invariably you see people begin to fidget , stammer or sweat all because the brain processing unit processed an attack on them.
Finally, Past Failures and experience can go a long way in reminding you of how pathetic you are in speaking
In any field of life, we all judge our expertize by our previous successes . We stand on that to declare out world. Because in this case, our brain processes a situation which is not hostile. So we believe we can do better again in the future.
A lot of people had have terrible times with public speaking and they are not willing to go through that same process again ,they feel the pain already by mere rehearsing the last scene in their head without even going on the stage, it is so real to them, and all of their thoughts is that when they go up again, they will halt while speaking and this is a major concern for some speakers and an issue that they need to settle first in heads.
Maybe there was insufficient preparation:
Nothing is as bad as insufficient preparation, it sucks away your confidence and immediately the fear of failure sets in when there is fear, your system gets so uncoordinated and the speaker would dread going up stage and looking stupid to the people. So panic sets in. The point where you run out of words is the point where panic sets in. Many at times, you run out of words because of insufficient preparation. Or just imagine, you were asked an unnacounted for question just after you finished speaking. let me stop on that note
How to overcome stage fright?
Pulling from the previous point i made under causes of stage fright, it is note worthy we understand that its major cure is to keep talking, You cant keep talking except if you know your topic so well.
There is nothing that gives a man confidence than enough knowledge, knowledge makes you stand out, it makes you stand with unflinching boldness and the fear that there are people that wants to pick out your error vanishes, you are so sure that you know that you won't even make mistake. At this point, the brain receives a signal that all is well. So it’s not a threat situation.
But dont forget that as you are familiarising yourself welll enough with the topic, you should realize that you aren't preparing for an examination but a demonstration. To do that effectively there are three words;
Practice, Practice and Practice
Practice makes permanence, as discussed earlier, the best of orators started out by delivering their first speech stuttering heavily. But guess what they never gave up they invest time into practice of speech over and over again.
The brain gets accustomed to what it gets exposed to consistently
MIND PROGRAMMING (Visualize the best before reaching for the podium)
If the brain isn’t that smart to figure out the difference between what’s real and what’s imagined then we can psyche our brain to believe that all is going to be fine, you can begin to create positive thoughts about how while we were speaking, people stood up and gave you a standing ovation.
This helps your brain process better, it is called the power of positive thinking.
Go the place of speaking early enough, so that you get used to the environment and you can have enough time to walk around and take some breath.
CONCLUSION
Your brain was unconsciously trained to fright while doing public speaking, for there to be a turn around, there must be be a conscious retrain of the mind, at that point public speaking would be like an inborn trait, though learned.
REFERENCES
Leaders who had crippling stage fright
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