Lacking positive public-speaking experience, feeling different from members of the audience, or feeling uneasy about being the center of attention—each of these factors can lead to the onset of public-speaking anxiety, that is, fear or anxiety associated with either actual or anticipated communication to an audience as a speaker.2 Identifying what makes you anxious can help you lessen your fear.
Lack of Positive Experience
If you have had no exposure to public speaking or have had unpleasant experiences, anxiety about what to expect is only natural. And with no positive experience to fall back on, it’s hard to put these anxieties in perspective. It’s a bit of a vicious circle. Some people react by deciding to avoid making speeches altogether. Gaining more experience, however, is key to overcoming speech anxiety.
Feeling Different
Novice speakers often feel alone—as if they were the only person ever to experience the dread of public speaking. The prospect of getting up in front of an audience makes them extra-sensitive to their personal idiosyncrasies, such as having a less-than-perfect haircut or an accent. They may believe that no one could possibly be interested in anything they have to say.
As inexperienced speakers, we become anxious because we assume that being different somehow means being inferior. Actually, everyone is different from everyone else in many ways. Just as true, nearly everyone experiences nervousness about giving a speech.
I control my anxiety by mentally viewing myself as being 100 percent equal to my classmates.
—Lee Morris, student
Being the Center of Attention
Certain audience behaviors—such as lack of making eye contact with the speaker, or conversing with a neighbor—can be disconcerting. Our tendency in these situations is to think we must be doing something wrong; we wonder what it is and whether the entire audience has noticed it.
Left unchecked, this kind of thinking can distract us from the speech itself, with all our attention now focused on “me.” Our self-consciousness makes us feel even more conspicuous and sensitive to what we might be doing wrong, which increases our anxiety! In fact, an audience generally notices very little about us that we don’t want to reveal.
It’s always scary to speak in front of others, but you just have to remember that everyone’s human. . . . Nobody wants you to fail; they’re not waiting on you to mess up.
—Mary Parrish, student