ARE YOU NERVOUS?

You can feel your heart beating faster.

Your whole body starts trembling.

You fingers are shaking.
You are sweating in an air-conditioned room
You wish you can run away
Have you ever experienced this before? Hmm...Are you nervous?

I have a confession to make. Nervous is my middle name. I get nervous all the time. It runs in my blood veins. I was nervous when I sat for my exams. I was nervous when I took my driving test. I was nervous when I acted in a play. I was nervous attending job interviews. And I’m always nervous every time I go up on stage to speak.

I’m sure you get nervous too when you have to stand in front of an audience to speak. Here you are standing in front of these people and they are all looking straight at you. Suddenly your mind just stops working. You can’t remember what you are going to say! You open your mouth to speak but somehow the words you say sounds so different. You wish it was just a dream so you can wake up.

Don’t worry; you are not the only one. Everybody gets nervous. Yes, I do mean everybody including the professional speakers out there. You must be saying there is no way these professional speakers are nervous. They always look confident on stage! Yes, you are right about one thing. They do look confident because they possess high self-confidence. But you are wrong about one thing. They are always nervous on stage too. Just like you and me.

The difference is these great speakers know how to control their nervousness. So how do they do it? You see, these good speakers have been giving speeches and presentations in front of large audience for many years. Some of them have been doing it all their life.

The fact is they are always nervous but they know how to deal with it. Well, it all comes back to experience. When you do something often, eventually you will be really good at it, no matter how difficult it is. Just look at forensic pathologists who perform postmortems on dead bodies. I’m sure they are nervous every time they are on the job.

We are only humans. Being worried, anxious, scared and apprehensive is normal for us mortals. You will not be able to stop being nervous completely but you can learn to control it. Before you find a ‘cure’ for your nervousness, you must first find out what cause these feelings of yours.

Why Are You Nervous? What is On Your Mind?

1) Lack of self-confidence

As I mentioned before, great speakers look confident on stage because they have high self-confidence. One of the reasons for your nervousness may be due to your lack of self-confidence. You don’t think you are good enough. You don’t feel that you talented at all. You don’t see yourself as a good speaker.

2) You Think Too Much

Overthinking is never good. It may lead to negative thinking. It can be very stressful especially when you are giving a speech. You will easily feel nervous when you think too much. Will they like my speech? Do they like me? How do I look? Will they find me funny? What if I forget my speech? What if I make a fool of myself?

3) You Are Not Ready

Another reason for you being nervous in front of people is because you are not ready. You have not been practising enough and you hardly remember your script. You are still figuring out how to deliver your speech and your mind is like a cloudy sky. When you are not well prepared, you will definitely get nervous.

How to Control Your Nervousness? How to Stay Cool on Stage?

1) Believe in Yourself

If you don’t believe in your own abilities, who will? You need to realise your strengths and weaknesses. Only you know who you really are. Trust yourself. Trust in your instinct. Everybody makes mistakes and it is alright to make mistakes. We learn from those mistakes. Remember, it takes time and effort to be great at what you do.

If you care too much about what people think about you and your speech, you will feel pressure. You will be under a lot stress and you will lose focus. Surprisingly, you end up making more mistakes than what you have imagined. 

Nothing is perfect. Stop looking for perfection. Instead of focusing on yourself, try concentrating on delivering the message of your speech. Stop assuming that you are going to fail unless you have a magical crystal ball. When you don’t think too much and intend to have a great time delivering a speech, everything will go on smoothly. Once you learn to believe in yourself, you will be able to control your nervousness.

2) Be Well – Prepared

Preparation is important in anything you do in life. When you are well-prepared, you have the whole thing planned out and you know exactly what to do. Practice, practice and more practice. You will know your speech by heart, what to expect during the presentation and how to deliver it. Thus, this will give you a peace of mind. When you are calm, you can concentrate on your speech and avoid overthinking. Then, you can control your nervousness when you speak.

3) Deliver Your Speech Sincerely From the Heart

Don’t try to impress your audience. Your speech is not about you. Your speech is about them. Focus on delivering the message across to your listeners. Be sincere. When you deliver your speech from the heart, you will pay more attention to the important things. You will not be looking for approval and compliment from your audience. You will not be wondering whether they love you and your speech. But you will be wondering whether they got the message or not. Once you focus on what matters the most, you can control your nervousness.

Points to Ponder…

Being nervous is not always a bad thing. Nervous is like an alert button. Nervousness makes you aware of the situation that you are going to face and be more cautious to avoid mistakes. Nervousness reminds you not to be overly confident.

Usually you will feel nervous at the beginning of your speech. After a while, the feelings of anxiety will slowly fade away.

So be brave. Just face the music. Stop worrying too much and just do it.

Stay Cool!

Written By: Intan Salwana Anis
@2017 Public Speaking Is Cool. All Rights Reserved.