Afraid To Speak In Public? Here's How To Give A Fearless Speech

If just the thought of giving a speech sends shivers down your spine, you're not alone. Being afraid to speak in public topped the list in a recent study of fears. It even outranked death, if you can believe that.

I guess when you think about it, I can understand why speaking in public would rank so high. It's hard getting in front of a crowd and having every eyeball in the room focused on you.

Although it might seem like the worst thing ever, overcoming the fear of speaking in public is something that can be accomplished. Listed below, are a few tips you can follow to stop being afraid to speak in public.

Prepare for your speech

Don't you feel more confident when you know what you're doing? Well, delivering a speech is no different. The more prepared you are with your speech, the more confident you'll feel when you're giving it.

Ideally, in order for your speech to come across as natural, and confident you'll want to follow these guidelines:

1. Choose your topic

2. Prepare an outline

3. Write the speech

4. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

The emphasis is on rehearsing. Actors, comedians, musicians all rehearse before giving a performance - and so should you. Rehearsing not only helps you to fine tune your speech, but it helps you burn the speech into memory. Your speech comes across much smoother, and more conversational, if you're not reading from a paper.

Narrow your focus

Let me ask you something... is it more intimidating to speak to a group of people or just one person? If you're like me, you'll probably feel less stress if you were talking to one person, than you would if you were speaking to a room full of people.

If that's the case, try not to focus on everyone in the room, as a whole. The secret here is to give eye contact to one person at a time, when giving your speech. Pick out someone in the crowd, maybe a friend or associate, and act as if you're speaking directly to them.

Depending on the size of the crowd that you're speaking to, you may want to choose a person in each section to focus your attention towards. For example, if you're on stage, and the crowd is divided into 2 halves - with an aisle in the middle. Choose one to two people from each section to give eye contact to. Doing this will help you to stay focused on your speech - without worrying about the size of the crowd.

By: QuincyB

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Here are 10 simple tips to becoming a confident public speaker, here: www.harmonicthinking.com/10-tips-to-becoming-a-confident-public-speaker