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Speaking with Confidence

When I think about Public Speaking the first image that comes to mind is a room full of people making fun of every word that comes out of my mouth. Ever since childhood I have been an extremely shy person and, even though I have managed my way through conversations, I still lack confidence when meeting new people.

If I had to summarize the major factors that account for my nervousness and lack of confidence; shyness, fear of people making fun of me, and second-guessing would be the culprits.

While for some people Public Speaking is almost like second nature, it is very much the contrary for many others including myself. This type of fear or nervousness impedes us from reaching our full potential. When I say that one of the factors that make me nervous when speaking is my fear of people making fun of me, it is due to the fact of English not being my first language.

It may sound weird, but I still think in Spanish and translate everything in my mind before I can deliver my message or put words on paper, even after being in this country for eleven years. This increases my fear even more because now I have to worry about speaking in front of people along with making sure that I say the right words. Thankfully there are many strategies that one can put into practice to ease the burden of speaking in public.

While reading about this topic I learned about the Power of Visualization, something I did not know existed. The fact that you can picture yourself being successful before a speech or specific scenario must be, in my opinion, the easiest strategy to implement when overcoming nervousness and lack of confidence. Regardless of how lucid or positive this mental blue print may be, we must acknowledge the nervousness we feel in these situations in order to successfully apply the Power of Visualization (Lucas, 2015. Pg. 13).

Drawing conclusions, Public Speaking is and will always be a skill we must learn how to master by implementing the skills we have learn thus far in this class. No matter how shy, nervous or afraid we may be, we must face our fear of speaking in public by practicing and preparing ourselves. Only then will we begin to overcome our fear of Public Speaking.

Reference:

Lucas, S. E. (2015). The Art of Public Speaking (12th ed.). New York, NY : McGraw Hill Education.