20 Proven Ways to Reduce Your Fear of Public Speaking

“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.” – Mark Twain

When people are surveyed for their greatest fears, the fear of speaking in public consistently is listed as the number one fear, even more than the fear of death. Believe it or not!

We all feel the fear of speaking in public to some extent. The question is how do you deal with this fear?

Below are 20 ways on how to deal with your fear of speaking in public:

1. Do the thing you fear repeatedly,
2. Everyone is somewhat fearful when they speak before an audience,
3. Most of the time, the thing you fear will not happen,
4. Fight your fear or else it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy,
5. Practice your speech 10 to 20 times by yourself and then practice it another 10 to 20 times by yourself – what you do in practice, you will do in public,
6. Practice your presentation before an audience of trusted friends,
7. Visit where you will give your presentation before you speak,
8. Realize your audience wants you to succeed,
9. If you are not a little bit fearful, your presentation will be flat,
10. Visualize a standing ovation from your audience,
11. The audience does not know, unless you tell them, when your presentation veers from how you practiced – don’t tell them,
12. Realize you are the most knowledgeable about your topic,
13. Delivering a presentation is just one-on-one conversations one at a time with several people (your audience),
14. Imagine you are the boss of everyone in your audience,
15. Imagine you are a teacher and your audience is a kindergarten class,
16. Before your presentation, ask and answer every possible question that could be asked on your topic,
17. Realize your fear will energize you during your presentation,
18. According to Earl Nightingale, 92% of worries are things that happened in your past you have no control over or things that never happen – stop worrying,
19. Talk to others about their fear of public speaking and what they did to overcome it, and
20. Help another person overcome his or her fear of speaking in public.

Realize that the fear of speaking in public is a natural fear shared by millions and, maybe, billions of people around the world.

You have all heard the mantra, “You can’t control what happens in your life, but you can always control your reaction to circumstances in your life.” It is true. You always have a choice on how to react.

Face your fear of public speaking and the death of this fear is certain!

Call to Action

• Practice your presentations over and over again and reduce your fear
• Visit where you will deliver your presentation before you do
• Don’t waste time worrying. 92% of your worries are from your past which you can do nothing about or will never happen

“A book may give you excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in the water, but sooner or later you must get wet …” – Dale Carnegie