Prior to writing this article on ‘Confidence in Public Speaking’, I did a quick Google search.
As I thought, there are literally thousands of articles and tips on How to be a Confident Public Speaker!
However, in my opinion, what many of these articles lack is what I believe to be the most important thing you can do for yourself if you want to be a great Public speaker.
I also write about this is some depth in my book ‘The Confidence Coach’
Fear of Public Speaking
You see, it is not necessarily the fear of Public Speaking that frightens the living daylights out of people, it is what they make it mean about them.
Case Study
Emma was a client of mine who came to me for assistance. She wanted my assistance on How to be a Confident Public Speaker. Due to a recent promotion, was required to do Public speaking in her new role. It is fair to say that she was Terrified! To assist, she also engaged the services of a local Public Speaking Coach.
The coach was excellent at helping Emma to stand up straight, project her voice and putting great material together for her speech.
However, there was one vital missing ingredient – the alignment of Emma’s beliefs.
Emma was a people pleaser and was always worried about what people thought of her. For her, it was extremely important that she was seen as being professional and accomplished. For Emma, this meant getting Public speaking nailed the first time and never making any errors or mistakes! She was expecting herself to be perfect.
Our Negative Beliefs Prevent us from being a Confident Public Speaker
With her current belief system, she made making a mistake in public speaking MEAN that:
1) She was a failure
2) Emma felt not good enough
3) People would laugh at her and judge her
4) She would let everyone down and was embarassing
Wow – can you see how difficult Emma had made it to be a confident public speaker?
We make things ‘ mean ‘ something about us
This is when my own expertise came into play as a award winning Life Coach and TV Presenter. I was able to support Emma to change these old outdated beliefs into new positive beliefs that supported her goal to be a confident public speaker.
These new Positive beliefs included:
1) Acknowledgment to herself that she was doing extremely well for a first attempt and it her techniques would only improve
2) Focussing on the how well she did – rather than the mistakes that she may have made
3) Boosting herself with words of encouragement about taking on a new skill
4) Examining her thought patters to ensure she wasn’t ‘ reading minds’ and just assuming people were judging her negatively
As a result, Emma felt far more relaxed about public speaking and even when she did make a mistake, she didn’t turn on herself and beat herself up. Public speaking then just became a new challenge that she was learning to master and she knew she would improve every time she gave it a go. She even started to see it as fun and would laugh at herself when she did make a mistake!
We need to Encourage Ourselves, not frighten Ourselves!
When we learn anything new for the first time, we need to be gentle and encouraging with ourselves. We need to accept that there is a learning curve and not make mistakes ‘ mean anything about us’
Think about it –
What do you make it mean if you make a mistake?
If you feel rejected, what do you make it mean about you?
What do you make it mean if someone doesn’t like you?
In truth, most of us turn on ourselves, making circumstances mean that we are not good enough or a failure.
Remember, we always have a choice. We can choose to beat up on ourselves, or we can choose to support ourselves
Life Coaching and Motivational Speaker Northamptonshire
The current Confidence Coaching expert on The Love Destination TV, Life Coach and Confidence Coach has over 22 years international experience. She is also engaged as a cruise ship speaker for several international cruise lines. The award winning Life Coach is the author of ‘ The Confidence Coach‘ book. Due to her expertise, Lisa’s work is frequently featured in the media.
In addition to assisting release their fears of public speaking, she receives fabulous feedback from anyone who is her audience at her guest speaker events.
To find out more about how Lisa can help you increase your confidence and self esteem in every area of your life, why not contact her for a no – obligation chat?
Download Lisa’s Guest Speaker Biography.
Download Lisa’s Life Coaching biography.
