Whenever an average person thinks of a public speaking situation,
the immediate emotion he feels is fear. Fear of Speaking in Public is
universal. For some people, it will be at a sub-conscious level and for
others, it will be perceptible. Yet, speaking is something which
everyone enjoys. In fact, talking to others is one of the psychological
needs of human beings. But still, people have this irrational fear. Why
do we have this fear and what can we do to come out of this?
Fears
can be of various types. One category of fear is the fear of the
unknown. If you are offered your dream job with a handsome salary, you
will be elated. But if you are told that your place of work will be a
town not familiar to you, your enthusiasm will instantly evaporate.
People fear unknown places, unknown people, unknown things and unknown
experiences. The fear of public speaking stems from the natural tendency
of the human mind to fear the unknown.
Do you travel often?
Recall your experiences. How comfortable are you with a person sitting
next to you in a train or a plane? Initially, you have a lurking
suspicion about the person. Will he or she be an affable person? You
fear him though he could not do you any harm, unless he is a terrorist,
which is only a remote possibility. (Anyway, this fear has been there
even in those days when terrorism had not raised its head.) But after a
while, once you start exchanging a few words, you become more
comfortable with him and the fear fades away.
The above example
helps us to understand the genesis of the fear of speaking in public.
More importantly, it also gives us a clue to overcome this fear. You
understand that it is natural for you to be apprehensive of speaking in
public. After all fearing the unknown is a natural trait of human
beings. But how do we drive out this fear? We are relieved of our
reservations about our next seat neighbor in the train by getting
ourselves acquainted with them. The unknown person becomes a friendly
neighbor in no time. You can use the same strategy with public speaking.
If
you want to free yourself from the fear of public speaking, get
acquainted with public speaking. How do you do this? Speak! Speak in
public, whenever there is an opportunity. Plunge into the public
speaking arena without giving an opportunity to your fear to talk you
out of it.
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