In 2011, the film, The King's Speech, won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The movie is about King George VI of Britain, who was teased and mocked for
his stuttering.
If anyone had a reason to be nervous about giving a speech,
it was him. At a pivotal moment in the film, the king's speech therapist.
Lionel Logue, encourages him with, "You could do it.
I'm trying to get you to realize you needn't be governed by fear."
All public speakers should take this quote to heart. Speech anxiety should not
paralyze you.
If King George could do it, so can you. Now, to be fair, it took over five years
for King George to learn to manage his speech anxiety,
but most people have neither a speech impediment nor the fate of their nation
at stake.
This video lecture addresses some common symptoms of nervousness,
irrational beliefs and how to change them, and how some treatments for
communication apprehension can be applied to public speaking,
and, finally, some general suggestions to help you manage your speech anxiety.
Your body is not nice to you when you are nervous. Reemember the flight or
fight
response to a perceived threat? Your body is doing its best to make you think that
you are too ill to do your speech--
is persuading you to flee. Don't believe me?
Look at some of the most common physical symptoms of nervousness:
Palpitations where your heart races are feels like it is pounding,
stomach issues which include the feeling of swarming butterflies,
stomach pain, and queasiness, causing you to wonder if you had the flu
or food poisoning, perspiration--you sweat,
often leading you to believe that you have a fever. You may find yourself
trembling or shaking, your voice quivering.
You can feel jittery or find yourself breathless or light-headed from
breathing too shallowly,
and you may experience dry mouth and difficulty swallowing.
Amazingly, the symptoms subside after you finished your speech,
so don't let your body fool you into thinking that you are ill.
if you know what symptoms you experience, you can make some adjustments.
Realize that most of these are not visible to the audience,
so don't dwell on them. Take heart palpitations and stomach issues,
for example.
We really can't see your pulse rate, nor your misbehaving butterflies.
And, for heaven's sake, don't point them out to your audience by commenting
on them
or putting your hand to your chest as it that will really slow youe racing
heart.
And, in most cases, we can't see you sweat.
Have you ever seen actors come out after show and only then noticed the shiny
sheen of perspiration on their foreheads or the telltale wetness
under their armpits? If you do sweat profusely, don't draw attention to it.
Don't tell your body to stop because it won't listen to you
and you'll likely sweat more, so accept as an inconvenience
and move on. If your audience does notice, they're often impressed that you are
continuing your speech.
And, of course, you can also had a small neutral-colored clean towel handy.
Your audiences is also not likely to see your legs trembling, your hands shake,
or even hear your voice quaking, so just ignore it.
If you are concerned, take a hint from magicians and employ the art
misdirection. Taking a few steps--not pacing--
might distract us from those trembling legs. If your hands shake,
avoid holding your visual aids or a manuscript, perhaps clasping your hands
together.
For your voice, distract us by maintaining strong eye contact, smiling,
and injecting positive energy and authoritativeness into your speaking
style.
If you are prone to jitteriness, exercise and shake out your body before you speak.
Avoid caffeine--unless it is your custom to drink coffee or tea
and, in that case, just reduce the amount you drink. Breathe...
which brings us to breathlessness, usually caused by poor breathing habits
and exasperated by poor posture.
Practice standing up straight, feet placed about shoulder-width apart,
and don't lock your knees. Breathe from your abdomen
rather than your chest. This is called diaphragmatic breathing.
Focus on posture and breathing in your normal everyday activities
so that they become automatic when you were delivering a speech.
If you experience dry mouth or difficulty swallowing, keep it bottled
water nearby.
Practice picking it up, uncapping it, taking a small sip,
and then capping it and putting it down. Why practice?
So you can do it smoothly and unobtrusively.
The bottom line, however, is that your audience is not likely to notice that
you are nervous
unless you draw attention to it. In fact, your audience expects a degree of
nervousness
and will likely overlook it if they see it. They really don't mind
unless it interferes with their ability to understand your message.
Psychotherapist Albert Ellis blames irrational beliefs as a major
contributor to strong emotional reactions
and negative behaviors. Irrational beliefs are those that are not based on
facts or reality.
He labeled it the A-B-C method.
A is the Activating Event, something that triggers the whole sequence,
such as when you begin to feel physically tense at the beginning of a
speech.
B stands for Belief or the thoughts that we have about the activating event;
what are you thinking about your being tense? And C stands for Consequences,
which is what happens as a consequence of both your feeling tense
and how you were thinking about it. Using this model, Dr. David Ross from the
College of Lake County explains how to students can interpret the same
activating event
in two different ways. A professor signs a major speech,
due in two weeks--that's the activating event.
Now let's go to the B: Belief. The first student thinks,
"I'm never able to get things done on time. I'll probably fail again."
which is an irrational belief. The second student, however, thinks,
"This will be a difficult assignment and will likely require a lot of preparation."--
a much more rational belief. That takes us to C:
Consequences. The first student begins to procrastinate
while the second student gets to work and starts making an outline.
Changing irrational beliefs takes planning and practice.
First you can dispute the belief, coming up with an alternative belief.
Ask a question about the belief that focuses on facts such as,
"Really? Have I never gotten something done on time?"
And then answer it with an example. If possible,
connect the feeling to a successful outcome: "I felt like this before but I
was still able to get it done on time."
If you already know it's an irrational belief, ask why you let yourself think
this way:
"Because I let the physical tension take over. If I can control the physical
tension,
I can control the anxiety." Plan in advance what you will do when
an activating event occurs. Then you can develop a set a positive
or rational self statements such as, "I have prepared well;
I can do a fine job," or "I don't have to get it an A;
I just have to get a passing grade." Again, notice that your thoughts can help you
or hinder you. As Henry Ford, founder a Ford Motor Company observed,
"if you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing,
you're right." We can also adapt the three treatments recommended for communication
apprehension
to public speaking anxiety. The first is systematic desensitization.
We start with small, less threatening types of speeches and,
over time, work your way up to the more complex and difficult speeches.
Just as you may ease yourself into a swimming pool,
where areas of your body that have already gotten wet don't feel as cold
when you get them wet again,
you ease into the speaking process. Most public speaking classes are designed
this way,
But you can do this yourself as you prepare for a speech.
First, deliver the speech to yourself in a mirror--experiencing very low anxiety,
but probably some. Then record yourself with an audio recorder and listen to it.
Then deliver the speech to your pets. than a couple of friends.
Record yourself on video and don't stop when you mess up.
And then deliver a speech in the room where you will be speaking--when it's
empty.
And, finally, deliver the speech for real.
The second treatment, cognitive restructuring, focuses on actually
changing the way you think,
similar to the ABC method we just described. Here you use mental
imagery to visualize success rather than failure.
Athletes do this all the time. See yourself delivering your speech
competently and maintaining your audience's attention.
Take control at that little voice in your head, replacing negative self-talk
with positive affirmation. While I can't guarantee you that if you visualize
success, you will always succeed,
I can guarantee that visualizing failure leads to...
failure. There's a caveat to this approach:
You should visualize success but be prepared to fail.
This means planning for the worst case scenario. Take Murphy's Law to heart,
which warns that
"If anything can go wrong it will go wrong and at the worst possible moment."
As there's no such thing as a perfect speech, know that you will make mistakes.
And rather than asking yourself what happens IF I make a mistake,
you ask instead how I handle it WHEN I make a mistake.
So prepare backup plans. Tell yourself that you will do well but have a plan if
you, for example.
drop your note cards. If you number them, this will help,
and then you can the scoop them up and continue.
Rhetoritherapy means recognizing that you can't do everything at once.
You identify reasonable, specific, goals,
determine the behaviors or skills needed to achieve each goal,
and then work on those with some way of determining if you've actually met
the goal.
For example, reduce your vocal disfluencies... those
are "ahs," and "ums." You record yourself and count how many times you use them in a minute--
this is your baseline--then you make a conscious effort to notice and reduce
them in your conversation.
you record yourself again to see if you have improved.
Then, once you feel you have your disfluencies under control you may target,
say, your posture. One skill at a time.
Another way to adapt rhetoritherapy to public speaking is to
back map. First, break down the assignment into smaller tasks, such as selecting a topic,
conducting preliminary research,
etc. Then estimate how much time
each task will take, and then double it at least,
as everything always takes longer than you think. Then,
starting with when the assignment is due and moving backwards,
identify when each task should be completed.
Oh, and the real secret is you must work to meet your internal deadlines.
Here's a sample back map with each task broken down into manageable chunks
of time. Note also that the researching and writing is completed early to give
time to practice the speech.
This technique should help you avoid two of the main causes a speech anxiety:
poor or insufficient preparation and lack of practice.
This brings us to some general suggestions for managing speech anxiety,
many of which relate back to what we've already discussed using cognitive
restructuring.
You can re-frame the speech as a challenging opportunity rather than an
assignment to be dreaded.
Don't tell yourself you're nervous; instead, you're excited.
Visualize success and plan for the worst. As you should now know, how you think
makes a difference.
And if you know how you can handle a misstep you should feel more confident.
Remember the A-B-C method to combat any irrational beliefs.
One irrational belief is that you have to be perfect. Instead,
have realistic expectations. Redefine success as meeting a particular goal
you've set,
such as making eye contact with the audience all the way through the speech.
And remember that not everyone has to be an outstanding speaker;
a competent speaker is all that is required.
Get familiar. Learn as much as you can about the speaking assignment:
what is expected in terms of length, topic, style, even attire.
Really know your content so that if you forget what you're going to say
you can refer back to something else related to the topic.
Get familiar with your speaking notes and any aids that you're using,
and discover as much as you can about where you will be speaking and to whom
you will be speaking.
Start preparing early--remember back mapping.
Allot sufficient time to practice, and practice means more than just reading
over your notes
over and over again. You must say the speech out loud.
Get used to the sound of your own voice. Record yourself;
as most people dislike being recorded your anxiety level will likely
increase when you find yourself in front of the camera, so you get some experience
getting through the speech
with higher-than-usual levels of anxiety. Oh, and it helps to watch the recording.
If you're new at speeches, plan to practice the speech at least six times
in its final form before you finally deliver it in front of your audience.
Many times, when w'ere practicing, we get interrupted, so the beginning is much
more practiced
then the end. Start part way through the speech and continue on
to the conclusion, then back up the section and do it again.
Not only will this help you become more familiar with the end of your speech,
you'll get experience with getting back on track if you forget a point.
You can practice in front of a full-length mirror, making eye contact with
yourself and observing your gestures and facial expressions.
If you find yourself easily distracted, try practicing a speech with the
television on.
Consider systematic desensitization if you are very anxious about speaking in
front of others.
Make a point of speaking up in a meeting or class so that you can get accustomed
to the feeling
of having people look at you and listen to you as you speak.
If you know which symptoms of nervousness you experience, adapt to
minimize their effects and noticeability.
And put speech anxiety in perspective; in the overall scheme of things,
it's really not that big a deal. Establish what I've heard called a
"horror floor," which is identifying the worst-case scenario,
then realize that you could survive that scenario.
For example, if the worst that can happen is that you fail the assignment,
okay, that's not ideal but you can survive that.
You might have to work harder on future speeches, you might have to retake the
course,
but it is survivable. So don't sweat it.
And remember most nervousness is not visible to your audience.
Processing time: What symptoms that nervousness do you experience most often
and how can you manage them? How do your thoughts affect your anxiety level?
And, how can you make your thoughts work for you? Which suggestion for managing
speech anxiety
do you think will help you the most? It's time to put this into practice
so that you can teach your butterflies to fly in a little less noticeable
fashion.