Sometime in our lives, we perform public actions like singing to an audience, explaining a product to a group of people and even having conversations with classmates. Although these are not exactly the public speaking we discuss here, but they are not so different either and deserve virtually thesame skill.
Throughout history, Public speaking has been used as a paramount means of communication. A good example is trying to convince an audience to value or purchase a product, and we all know how long trading has gone in history. Even the famous Christian Bible written ages ago has plenty examples of where oration were delivered.
Also, the oldest known handbook for Effective Speech was written on papyrus in Egypt dating about 4,500 years back.
WHAT IS PUBLIC SPEAKING?
Public speaking is an act of performing a speech to an audience. It is when you stand before an audience to deliver any form of speech, whether in a formal or an informal occasion.
It is also known as Oratory or Oration.
SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PUBLIC SPEAKING AND HAVING A CONVERSATION
When we discuss informally and confidently with our colleagues and friends, basic talking with people around you and speaking to a single person, these are not Public Speaking acts, rather, they are mere conversations. Public speaking deals with a much more amount of formality than having a conversation. One important key difference is Critical Thinking. Public speaking is based wholly on critical thinking while conversation isn’t. Critical thinking is focused and organized thinking about things as the logical relationships among ideas, soundness of pure evidence, and the clear difference between facts and opinions.
The similarity between public speaking and conversations is that they are both very alike in terms of being oral, presenting information and involving thesame skills.
Public speaking might be a very difficult task to some people. It comes hand-in-hand with nervousness, and if one is not careful, he/she might get overwhelmed by the fear and flunk at the performance. I would be explaining how to overcome the FEARS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING next;
THE TRICKS TO OVERCOMING THE FEARS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
It’s alright to be nervous about speaking in public is it is not alright to be overwhelmed by it. Plenty big celebrities and stunning stage performers have aired that they get nervous from time to time about their performances, but one thing that we know is sure is that even with this acclaimed nervousness, they still perform excellently well. What could be their secret? Well they are obviously not drinking magic potions
and you too can learn the tricks to it.
The first thing to do when you get nervous the minutes before you’re about to present a speech (or even a performance of any sort), is to accept your nervousness. There are plenty body tricks out there which relieves one of nerves, one of them is continuously clenching one’s fist or behavin in your most comfortable way at that point in time.
Coming after accepting your nervousness, is turning the Negative feelings of the nervousness into Positivity. Instead of having the thoughts
“i might fail at this”
“what if I forget my line?”
And other negative thoughts, try to channel the nervousness into positivity .
For example, like turning the nervous energy into positive vibes, e.g
“I'm nervous because I just can’t wait to get on that stage and deliver, and get my standing ovation ofcourse”
“i love this moment!”
This gives you great confidence and you won’t even have to shiver when you have thoughts like this. It’s typically that easy.
The next trick to overcoming the fears is being CONFIDENT. Be in your boldness spirit and fill your mind with positivity. Confidence is the main key of public speaking success; even if you do not feel confident, act like you are and automatically the confidence builds up in you. But note, all these tricks can only be achieved perfectly when you prepare hard for the speech, so do not expect magic to take course for you on that stage when you did not practice well.
Also, looking good helps to raising your confidence bars. Imagine having a speech with the shared thoughts of the words to say and also worrying if your audience would notice the huge stain on your trouser. That alone would set in room of insecurity and such person would likely breakdown or miss words up, or even shiver to the point where it’s a matter of concern to the audience to come to our rescue. Dress cooperate in clean and well-ironed clothes, look dashing and that alone would move your confidence level up a notch.
Another important point to note is that your nevousness cannot be easily noticed by your audience, it is typically just all in your head.what you feel cannot be seen by your audience, so with knowledge of this alone, confidence level to perform should rise to the positive side. It is okay to be nervous, just have the mindset that these people cannot see what I’m feeling right now so I can be relieved and do what's needful.
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So in summary, prepare and practice to perfection, keep the positivity vibe up, raise the confidence bars and see how awesome your performance would be on the D-day. The Art of Excellent and well-skilled Public Speaking can be advantageous is so many ways.
REFERENCES
- The Art of Public Speaking, Stephen Lucas, Tenth edition, University of Wisconsin. Copyright 2009.
- https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-public-speaking-and-why-do-i-need-it.html
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_speaking