Speaking in Public

How to overcome the fear to the audience?

🕤 31,March,2020   😊 Apoorva Srivastava  🗁 Motivational

Step1:  Improve Speaking and Pronunciation

Read out loud.   I had a number of choose-your-own-adventure novels I enjoyed when I was young. In addition to being entertaining, reading them out loud allowed me to practice speaking with a broad, exciting vocabulary.  Choose your own adventure books also lend themselves well to dramatic interpretation, which allowed me to play around with inflection and tone.

Emulate other speakers.   As a child I watched Wheel of Fortune with my family. Pat Sajak had a calm, clear speaking voice.  When I started looking to improve my speech, I would watch and quietly repeat what he said to myself, and later while reading out loud in my room, or even in conversations with friends, I would ask myself “How would Pat Sajak say this?”  Pat Sajak was the ultimate host – he made people feel at ease, projected confidence and charisma, and spoke clearly.

Step 2: Practice Speaking to Others – For a Small Audience

Multiple person dinner/party conversations.  All human interaction isn’t just one on one – oftentimes we’ll meet for dinner with multiple people, or perhaps I’ll be in a circle of friends at a party.

Committee meetings and debate.  I was in a number of service clubs, social clubs, student government organizations etc as a child.  Even at work I continue to have small 3-6 person committee meetings.  Once again, this provides a small, reasonably receptive audience to speak to – and one or two people who would provide immediate feedback.

Step 3: Practice Speaking With Friends and Family

No real secret here – once I started improving my speaking skills, I enjoyed conversation more and was more outspoken among friends.  If you lack interesting material to talk about, consider reading some of my favorite personal development books.

Step 4: Practice Speaking and Poise

Practice speaking to a mirror.  This has always been a little difficult for me.   The usefulness of this activity is hard to dispute though.  The feedback is clear and immediate, and as I started improving it boosted my confidence by seeing how easy it was for myself to present an argument or point of view – even if it was just to myself.

Record yourself speaking.  Video works best, but even just hearing audio will point out flaws in your speaking.  You’ll notice whether you speak too slow or fast, the inflections in your voice, the “ums” etc. If you can stand it, it’s great to have someone else review your recording and critique you as well. In high school I picked up a cheap audio recorder and would record myself practicing class presentations.

Can you people help me in finding some more suggestions to overcome from the vocal fear, then comment it.

THANK YOU! 💗