March 27, 2024
So, you’ve probably tried to speak in public before. And even though you wanted to do it well, your body had other plans. Your palms got sweaty, your legs started trembling, and your face turned red.
But don’t worry. After reading this article, this won’t happen again. You might even start loving speaking in public.
Here are 3 effective techniques to overcome speech anxiety.
In the 1970s Dr. Peter Levine analyzed animals in the wild to understand how they respond to trauma and stress. As part of that, he looked at how antelopes would be affected after being chased by a lion. He expected that these massively stressful events would have a negative impact on the antelopes. That they would exhibit some nervous behavior, restlessness, or trauma.
If any of us were chased by a lion, we’d probably be traumatized for the rest of our lives. I’d probably never leave my house again.
But that is not what happened with the antelopes. Here’s what happened instead.
The antelope started shaking its entire body. After shaking, it just went back to its herd and continued grazing relaxed as if nothing had happened.
How was that possible?
Dr. Levine found that animals in the wild have a coping mechanism to let go of a traumatic event. The moment the danger is gone, they shiver and shake their entire body to naturally release the stress from their bodies.
We as humans, what do we do when we experience stress?
We just suck it up. We keep the stress in our body.
So, how can you let go of that stress?
In the same way as animals let go of that stress: You shake your body for 2 to 3 minutes.
Shake your arms, rotate your shoulders, kick your legs, move your feet—focus on every single limb.
The more physically active you can be, the more you’ll let go of stress and clear your mind.
If anyone sees you, they should think that the devil has taken control of you.
Releasing the stress is one technique. Another very effective technique is to reframe it.
In my coaching sessions, my clients often ask me:
“Philipp, can you help me get rid of my nerves?”
And every time I’m like, “No, I can’t. Unless you’re a total sociopath, you will have these feelings.”
Every single speaker that I know still gets nervous when speaking in front of an audience that matters. Doesn’t matter how experienced they are.
Feeling nervous before speaking in public is completely normal.
But the key is not to be afraid of this feeling.
Nerves are like waves in the ocean – you can’t stop the waves but you can learn how to surf.
So how can accept your nerves actually use them to your favor?
By doing a simple, but very powerful reframe.
In 2014, Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Brooks found that participants who reframed their anxiety as excitement performed much better than the ones who didn’t.
They scored higher in karaoke, were rated as more persuasive, competent, and confident speakers and even scored higher in a math test – only by reframing their anxiety into excitement.
So, next time you get nervous: simply reframe your nervousness and tell yourself “I’m excited.”
Say it out loud a few times and you’ll feel significantly more confident.
This simple technique can do wonders. But sometimes when our fears take over, you need to do something else.
In May 2022, I was invited to give a TED talk in the Netherlands.
And even though I was super excited because this had been my dream, I was also terrified.
I thought, “What if I black out in front of everyone?”
“What if my head turns completely red?”
“What if the PowerPoint stops working?”
Very quickly I went down this downward spiral.
In my despair, I called my best friend, Damian, to ask him for advice.
After hearing me cry for a little, he asked me, “Philipp, what’s the worst thing that could happen? – like really the worst thing that could happen.”
First, I said, “Forgetting what I wanted to say.”
But then I thought of it a bit more and said, “The worst thing I can imagine is pooping my pants on stage. That’d suck big time.”
Damian: “Perfect. And now imagine how you’d do a presentation with poo in your pants. Imagine yourself, pooing yourself, but also owning the situation, continuing your speech, and delivering an awesome talk.”
That day, Damian helped do a doom visualization – a visualization where you imagine your fears coming true.
After doing that visualization a few times, I realized that yes, it would suck, but I could handle that. Even if the worst scenario happens, I can work with that.
A few days later, I gave a TED talk in front of hundreds of people. My talk was selected as Editor’s pick by the Global TED organization out of a hundred other talks.
None of my fears had come true. But even if they had, I would have known how to handle them.
And you can do the same. The next time you have a presentation or speech coming up, do a doom visualization.
Think about the worst things that could happen and imagine this happening.
But also imagine how you’d overcome that problem and actually crush it at the end. Embrace your fears and use them as your power.
That’s it. Those are my 3 fixes that I use before any presentation to overcome speech anxiety. But these are kind of short-term hacks. They will help you a lot, but they won’t help build long-lasting confidence. For that, you may want to check out this next article in which I share How I’d learn public speaking if I could start over.
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