Stop Thinking About Yourself If You Want to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking.

The majority of us, including those at the top, experience public speaking anxiety. The same responses are always given by my clients when I ask them what makes them anxious:

Thus, when they stand to speak, almost all of them avoid making eye contact with audience members at first. The issue is that, despite appearing to be a good way to deal with speaking anxiety, avoiding direct eye contact just serves to increase your anxiety.

We need to go back to the prehistoric era to understand why, when people thought that being watched by others posed an existential threat. Most likely, those were predators' eyes. The fear of being eaten alive was palpable. The amygdala, a region of the brain that aids in our reaction to danger, activated fully in response to that primitive reality. We rightly experience extreme stress and anxiety when our fight-or-flight reflex is triggered. What relevance does this have to public speaking? Apparently, everything.

The bad news is that our ancestors' dread of being observed has been transmitted to public speaking by our brains. In other words, fear of public speaking runs in our family. Public speech is perceived by us as an assault. We mount a similar response when we physiologically perceive an audience as a potentially dangerous predator. Many people's body language during conversations resembles how their body would respond to physical danger indicators (shortness of breath, redness of face, shaking).

Today, speaking in front of a gathering and sensing eyes on us makes us feel horribly obvious, like a caveman out in the open. We take all required precautions to protect ourselves since our brain is alerting us to an attack. To fend off the onslaught and neutralise any threat, we build walls between ourselves and the danger's source—in this case, the audience.

How do these walls appear? We concentrate on our presentations. We glance downward. We withdraw to our notebooks. While doing so, we ignore the people in front of us and wish them away. Even the most assured speakers manage to put their listeners at a distance. It's just the way we were created.

Human giving, fortunately, offers a remedy. Turning our attention away from ourselves, from worrying about whether we'll botch up or whether the audience will like us, and toward assisting the audience is the key to calming the amygdala and disabling our natural panic button.

According to studies, the activity of the amygdala decreases as generosity increases. The vagus nerve, which has the ability to calm the fight-or-flight response, has been proven to be activated by acts of compassion and generosity toward others. We feel more at ease and less worried when we are kind to others. Public speaking follows the same rule. We can combat the feeling of being attacked and begin to feel less anxious when we approach speaking with generosity.

This is challenging, to be sure. Because their brains are telling them, "Now is not the time to give," speech-coaching clients who are the most giving in their job and personal lives frequently struggle while speaking in front of an audience. Time to leave now! But it is definitely feasible to develop into a kind speaker. Start by taking these three actions:

1. Keep your audience in mind as you prepare.

We all make the error of beginning with the topic when preparing for a presentation. This quickly draws us into the specifics and makes it more difficult to break down the barrier separating us from other people. Start with the audience instead. Consider who will be present in the room before getting into the information. They're there, but why? What are they lacking? In your responses, be precise. Create a message that directly addresses the audience's requirements, both expressed and unspoken.

2. Refocus your thoughts just before you speak.

Right before you talk, you experience the most anxiety. Your brain is telling you, "Everyone is judging me," at this precise time. What if I mess up? You can actually redirect your mind at this precise time. Remind yourself that your audience needs your support. With your brain, be firm. "Brain, this presentation is not about me," tell yourself. Helping my audience is the goal. Your brain will eventually catch on (often after four to six presentations), and you'll start to feel less anxious.

3. Maintain eye contact when communicating.

Speaking to a bunch of people at once is one of the biggest errors we make. In our attempt to look at everyone at once while scanning the room, we fail to make any eye contact.

Actually, everyone in the room is paying attention to you individually. Therefore, talking to each person in your audience individually is the greatest approach to engage them. How? by keeping a steady gaze on one individual per thought. (Each thought concerns a complete phrase.) You can give each person in the room the impression that you are speaking only to them by concentrating on one person at a time.