Tips on overcoming speech nervousness
March 18, 2015 10:53 AM Subscribe
I have to give a speech at my organization and I feel two things: slightly nervous about screwing it up and ridiculous that I feel nervous.
I say "ridiculous" because my day job is training/teaching groups of 40 or so people every single day. I'm leaving this job and my employers want me to give a short farewell speech at the next organization-wide meeting. So instead of 40 people it'll be speaking to something like 1,500 people, in front of everyone. So it's something new.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure once I am handed the mike and start talking, it'll be ok. It's a short speech and I've got it in my head already (with a little wiggle room to shrink or expand if necessary), but still. I was given a day--Thursday next week. So there's this countdown. And simply given the time to wait for it sends my brain into overdrive, and it (my brain) wants me to practice the speech over and over again--even though it's about 6 or 7 sentences, max.
So I guess my question is: how do I get my brain to shut the hell up worrying about this speech? It's not helping. I just feel embarrassed about doing such a simple thing that I see colleagues do all the time, spontaneously and expertly. So it's literally fear itself that I fear. I don't want to spend the next seven days involuntarily stressing about this.
I say "ridiculous" because my day job is training/teaching groups of 40 or so people every single day. I'm leaving this job and my employers want me to give a short farewell speech at the next organization-wide meeting. So instead of 40 people it'll be speaking to something like 1,500 people, in front of everyone. So it's something new.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure once I am handed the mike and start talking, it'll be ok. It's a short speech and I've got it in my head already (with a little wiggle room to shrink or expand if necessary), but still. I was given a day--Thursday next week. So there's this countdown. And simply given the time to wait for it sends my brain into overdrive, and it (my brain) wants me to practice the speech over and over again--even though it's about 6 or 7 sentences, max.
So I guess my question is: how do I get my brain to shut the hell up worrying about this speech? It's not helping. I just feel embarrassed about doing such a simple thing that I see colleagues do all the time, spontaneously and expertly. So it's literally fear itself that I fear. I don't want to spend the next seven days involuntarily stressing about this.
I find that focusing on what I want to say and how I want to say it, rather than the size of the audience, helps me simmer down in advance. And during, I aim to make eye contact with the people listening, which makes even a big group feel more intimate and connected.
posted by bearwife at 11:06 AM on March 18, 2015
posted by bearwife at 11:06 AM on March 18, 2015
I get very nervous whenever I have to present (even if its just casual!) so definitly not silly. In grad school I found setting up a "practice schedule" to be helpful, even when I didn't need it. Whenever I started feeling anxious, I could tell myself that for 10 minutes at 4 pm every afternoon (or whatever) was my time to practice. That let me tune out the anxiety and focus on whatever else needed to be done.
posted by ghost phoneme at 11:10 AM on March 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ghost phoneme at 11:10 AM on March 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
I just feel embarrassed about doing such a simple thing that I see colleagues do all the time, spontaneously and expertly.
Most of those colleagues probably feel the same way you do, they've just figured out how not to let it show too much. Just knowing that has helped me enormously with this kind of thing. The other thing that will help is preparation. The better prepared you feel, the less nervous you're likely to be. It's amazing how much advance preparation goes into a spontaneous presentation sometimes.
I don't want to spend the next seven days involuntarily stressing about this.
I don't know if this will help, but for me I've come to the realization that I'm going to do that no matter what. I think of it like a flood, where the problem is not how to stop it, but how to swim in it instead of drowning, until it goes away.
So accept that it's going to happen, acknowledge that it's going to suck for a while, and try not to beat yourself up over being unable to relax about this. About 50% of my stress was this kind of meta-stress that went away once I just accepted that's how my brain works.
posted by FishBike at 12:00 PM on March 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
Most of those colleagues probably feel the same way you do, they've just figured out how not to let it show too much. Just knowing that has helped me enormously with this kind of thing. The other thing that will help is preparation. The better prepared you feel, the less nervous you're likely to be. It's amazing how much advance preparation goes into a spontaneous presentation sometimes.
I don't want to spend the next seven days involuntarily stressing about this.
I don't know if this will help, but for me I've come to the realization that I'm going to do that no matter what. I think of it like a flood, where the problem is not how to stop it, but how to swim in it instead of drowning, until it goes away.
So accept that it's going to happen, acknowledge that it's going to suck for a while, and try not to beat yourself up over being unable to relax about this. About 50% of my stress was this kind of meta-stress that went away once I just accepted that's how my brain works.
posted by FishBike at 12:00 PM on March 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
My first point: it will be fine.
My second point: You say you're nervous about "screwing it up". Since you speak in front of people all the time, you feel silly feeling nervous about public speaking, but screwing it up can encompass all sorts of things that aren't about standing in front of a large audience. Are you sure it's the audience and the speaking that's making you nervous? Maybe if you had some other people look at the speech and assure you that it's great, maybe if you picked out the clothes you'll be wearing, maybe if you walked into the giant room and admired the view from the front of it, you might start feeling better.
Which brings me back to my first point. I meant to help you out with the "why the heck do I feel nervous when I know I'm a pro at this?" conundrum. I didn't mean to bring up *more* reasons to be nervous - you're a pro at this, and it's going to be fine.
posted by aimedwander at 12:06 PM on March 18, 2015
My second point: You say you're nervous about "screwing it up". Since you speak in front of people all the time, you feel silly feeling nervous about public speaking, but screwing it up can encompass all sorts of things that aren't about standing in front of a large audience. Are you sure it's the audience and the speaking that's making you nervous? Maybe if you had some other people look at the speech and assure you that it's great, maybe if you picked out the clothes you'll be wearing, maybe if you walked into the giant room and admired the view from the front of it, you might start feeling better.
Which brings me back to my first point. I meant to help you out with the "why the heck do I feel nervous when I know I'm a pro at this?" conundrum. I didn't mean to bring up *more* reasons to be nervous - you're a pro at this, and it's going to be fine.
posted by aimedwander at 12:06 PM on March 18, 2015
Be prepared. Practice so much that you don't have to think about it.
You can just roll, no matter how nervous you are - if you practice enough, it will be fine.
posted by Flood at 12:58 PM on March 18, 2015
You can just roll, no matter how nervous you are - if you practice enough, it will be fine.
posted by Flood at 12:58 PM on March 18, 2015
Have water. Last time I gave a speech, I faked it well but underneath was so nervous that my mouth dried up!
posted by theredpen at 1:37 PM on March 18, 2015
posted by theredpen at 1:37 PM on March 18, 2015
Be prepared. Practice so much that you don't have to think about it.
You can just roll, no matter how nervous you are - if you practice enough, it will be fine.
Yep, nthing this. Know your material so well that it feels natural to say it. And even if you have a stumble, being super well-practiced gives you the ability to improvise on the fly because it's all in your brain somewhere.
Also, best advice I ever got about playing music in front of people and making mistakes: "Nobody is ever going to know what you didn't do."
How do I get my brain to shut the hell up worrying about this speech?
Time spent practicing in the mirror is time spent away from worrying and lets you practice surveying the people you're speaking to, and making eye contact.
Also, the time spent taking a nice, deep breath as you settle into your material seems like an eternity when you're the presenter. To your audience, it's a blink of an eye. They didn't notice!
Good luck!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:34 PM on March 19, 2015
You can just roll, no matter how nervous you are - if you practice enough, it will be fine.
Yep, nthing this. Know your material so well that it feels natural to say it. And even if you have a stumble, being super well-practiced gives you the ability to improvise on the fly because it's all in your brain somewhere.
Also, best advice I ever got about playing music in front of people and making mistakes: "Nobody is ever going to know what you didn't do."
How do I get my brain to shut the hell up worrying about this speech?
Time spent practicing in the mirror is time spent away from worrying and lets you practice surveying the people you're speaking to, and making eye contact.
Also, the time spent taking a nice, deep breath as you settle into your material seems like an eternity when you're the presenter. To your audience, it's a blink of an eye. They didn't notice!
Good luck!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:34 PM on March 19, 2015
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posted by pwally at 11:02 AM on March 18, 2015 [1 favorite]