Welcome stage fright, eliminate anxiety

When you must give a presentation or a speech, it is possible that you will feel some or all of these symptoms. For many people, that's enough to make it one of the worst experiences of their lives. But it doesn't have to be this way.

Even if you want to eliminate stage fright completely before giving a speech, it may not be possible. It may not even be desirable. In fact, it is essential to have a certain level of stage fright. If you feel no butterflies prior to giving a speech, then either you don't consider the speech very important or you don't consider the audience very important. What you want to eliminate is not stage fright: it's anxiety.

Stage fright will give you an energy that will help you give a better speech. Anxiety will often have the opposite effect. It keeps us from breathing freely, it breaks our concentration, and prevents us from being at our best.

If you have a tendency to be very nervous when you give speeches and presentations, the solution to this problem is to take the bull by the horns and take the necessary measures to control your nervousness. It's not that difficult and as you give more speeches, the anxiety will subside naturally.

Here are a few tricks that can help you eliminate anxiety:

• Preparation: I have found that I am most nervous when I haven't prepared a speech sufficiently. When that happens, instead of concentrating on what I have to say, I concentrate on things that could go wrong or things that I may forget. When I have prepared sufficiently, I don't have these preoccupations. Proper preparation is the major key to eliminating anxiety. In fact, it is so important that I will come back to this subject on a regular basis.
• Breathing: When we are nervous, we become more tense and we don't breathe as easily. One trick I use very often is to take several deep breaths before going on stage. I inhale deeply, hold my breath for two or three seconds and then I let it out slowly. I do this three or four times to clear my thoughts and get ready to blow the audience away! 
  Another technique I use is one I learned from Tony Robbins. I inhale in four quick breaths and exhale in four quick breaths also.
  Use these breathing techniques to help clear your mind before a speech. I guarantee that they will help you feel better. Just one note: try not to do these exercises in front of the audience. Do it in the bathroom or in a side room if you can.
• Relaxation: Learn to relax before speaking to a group. Establish a routine and follow it as closely as possible prior to speaking. Practice this routine at home first, to get comfortable with it. When you repeat those same movements before a speech, it will be easier to associate them with relaxing moment and that will help you be less anxious. The familiarity of oft-repeated movements will have a calming effect.
  Professional sports players often follow the same routine before a competition. Try to develop your own routine et repeat it every time you must speak. My routine is to blast some music with my CD player and dance around before going on stage. People who see me find it funny, it puts me in a good mood and it almost never fails: I give a great speech afterwards.
• Visualisation: Fill your mind with positive thoughts about yourself, and eventually, it will start believing them. Imagine that when you begin your speech, there will only be smiling faces looking at you. Imagine that your audience is hanging on your every word. See in your mind what a great speech you will deliver. And while you're at it, why not give yourself a standing ovation!  
  Will all this happen? Maybe not. However, if you talk yourself into believing it, you will feel less nervous and, who knows, you may even feel happy at the thought of giving a speech! Most champions in any discipline will tell you that visualisation is one of the major techniques that help them achieve greatness. Use it to your advantage.

There are other techniques that can be used and we will discuss some of them later on. The important thing is to try to tame stage fright and to eliminate anxiety. The tricks presented here will help, but they aren't sufficient. There is one important element missing: practice!

The more presentations you give, the less anxiety you will feel and the better you will become. Take any occasion you can to speak in public. Do it in the office, at a family meeting, at a friend's wedding, take a chance: stand up and speak whenever you can!

Remember that stage fright is a necessary component of a good speech. It is a sign that you value what you are doing and that you want to do it well. Welcome stage fright with a smile, keep anxiety at bay with some relaxation exercises and enjoy public speaking to the fullest!

© Laurent Duperval