7 cheats to reduce your fear of public speaking

We've all been there, hands sweating while you are getting ready to do a presentation for the boardroom or class. You wishing you would be anywhere but where you are at the moment while your audience growing increasingly bored in front of you.

I used to hate speaking in public, there was litteraly nothing I was more afraid of. Looking into the subject matter it seems I'm far from alone as fear of speaking in public outranked fear of death in a study made back in '77. With a society around us where we constantly tell the world around us what we are doing through social media you would think that this fear would be a thing of the past. Not so, we are actually more afraid of speaking in public than ever. Since I got rid of my overbearing fear, I thought it would only be fair if I shared some advice with you on how I got rid of my anexiety.

These "cheats" are meant to be taken as ways to gradually reduce your fear through repetition, and will hopefully help reduce or remove your anexiety in the process:

1. Use a PowerPoint

Seriously, its easy to forget how much calmer you become of you give your audience something else to glue their eyes on rather that yourself. Best of all, by showing a presentation you make yourself understood even more easily. You can even walk up to the screen and point to what parts you are refering to for maximum effect.

2. Don't be judgmental

This is probably the most important point of all. When I was at the height of my fear of speaking in public, I was not the most afraid of what people would think of my presentation, no - I was afraid that people would *see how nervous I was*. Why was that so horrible for me you may ask? See, if you are afraid of appearing in a certain way it is very often because you tend to judge others as well. But what I found out was when I tried to be less judgemental of others around me I also stopped caring if my nervosity showed during presentations. If you start allowing others to make mistakes you will see that you will start allowing yourself to make mistakes as well, and then your nervosity will decrease drastically.

3. Practice

Being confident in your material is one thing, but try practicing before people you know well and thereby get comfortable with the material. You can even practice in the same location as you know the presentation will take place later on as well ideally.

4. Focus on what you are saying

Instead of focusing on the material, I realized that nervous me started thinking about things such as my body posture, my voice, whenever I was shaking or not. All of this only lead to me becoming more nervous of course. Knowing what you will say and being able to explain it in an easy way can only come if you focus on what you are saying rather than these other things. What often will give the presentation the most confident and natural tone is usually if you simply focus on the material and nothing else.

5. Beta blockers

Originally a medication used to regulate blood flow, beta blockes also have an remarkable effect for people suffering from stage fright. While this cheat is no permanent solution to your problem, you can use these presentations using beta blockers to allow yourself to make mistakes or experiment what will happen if you do the presentation differently. In the long run you should be able to handle public speaking without them, as they show you that your fear is making things seem more scary than they are.

6. Focus on *one* person

Zoom in on one person in the audience you are comfortable with. Usually it helps if this is a person who knows that you dislike speaking in public. By looking them in the eye you can reduce your own anexiety and find comfort in the fact that your friend supports you.

7. Ignore the fact that others are better

Public speaking is a skill like any other. You might be good at a hundred other things that the public speaker that draws roars of laughter from the audience is. It doesnt matter what anybody else does, you just need to get up there and present your stuff and then sit down. Nothing more, nothing less!