At ease with humour

Are you one of those people who is afraid to use humour “because I'm not funny?” Bah! Humbug! Who said you had to be funny in order to use humour?

Humour is one of those apparently mysterious beasts, whose behaviour does not entirely depend on you; it also depends on your audience.

Sometimes, you will feel like you have said something hilarious but you will get no reaction. Conversely, you may say something you consider inconsequential and your audience erupts in laughter.

Many people will not use humour because they feel too much pressure to be funny. Often, the person who will be hardest on your humour is yourself. It that is the case, you can relieve some of the tension by applying the following tricks.

Don't telegraph your humour: If you are about to say something funny, don't say “You're going to laugh” or “You're going to find this very funny.” Just do your bit and let the audience decide if it is funny or not.
Smile and wait: sometimes it takes a bit of time for the audience to react. If you smile and wait, the reaction will come a bit later. If there is no reaction, keep going as if nothing happened. If you have not telegraphed your humour, your audience may not even realise that you tried to be funny.
Fuhgeddaboudit: most comedians make jokes that get no laugh. Johnny Carson was famous for it. When it happens, comedians either ignore it or they laugh about it and keep going.
If nobody reacts, you can use a technique that stand up comedians often use: laugh about your botched joke. Prepare a list of comebacks for such situations and use them when you misfire. For example, “That's weird, my goldfish really laughed at that one.” Or, “Have you noticed how loud the flies became after that joke? I wonder if it's their way of laughing at me.” Smile and continue.
Let your audience make the jokes: the funniest moments often occur spontaneously. It may be something that is said during your presentation or a funny situation that occurred as you were speaking. If you watch for these situations, you can use them as a running gag and create effective and funny situations with little effort or stress.

I have done a bit of standup comedy thinking I was God's gift to humour, only to find out that the audience thought otherwise. I've had that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look more often than I care to admit. With time, I've learned to take it in stride.

Don't forget: unless you are a professional comedian, nobody expects you to succeed all the time at humour. So stop being so hard on yourself and dare to be funny!