WHAT CAUSES A PUBLIC SPEAKING FEAR?

Public Speaking is the number one fear amongst the majority of people. We’ve heard the statistics for years that speaking in public is frightening and often debilitating. It crosses ethnicity, gender, and race.
In my years of researching this topic, I have found there often is a trigger that seems to occur around puberty. It can happen earlier or later but consistently hundreds of my clients, recall the first experience with a public speaking fear happening during puberty. It makes sense that during those years of hormonal imbalances, emotional and physical changes our minds and bodies react to perceived stress in a negative fashion. There are people who seem to be stress resilient and public speaking provides an opportunity for them to shine and feel important.
If the fear of public speaking is not recognized, addressed and dealt with, it lies dormant and resurfaces throughout ones’ life whenever they are called on to make a presentation.
Many people despise being judged by others. Our self esteem is very fragile and even successful professional speakers dread reading the comment sheets about their performance after a speech. Human nature focuses on the one or two negative comments rather than on the majority of positive feedback. Perhaps those negative comments were from audience members who were having a bad day, or feel diminished by other peoples success. Maybe they are just nasty, mean people who want to instil a thread of self doubt in the speaker.
Speakers must rise above the chatter and be able to self-regulate and determine if they felt their presentations were effective and given their very best effort.
How often have you thought to yourself when you have to give a speech, ‘People will laugh at me.’ or ‘I’m afraid I will make a fool of myself.’ ‘I will turn red, shake or stutter.’
And what would occur if any of these things did happen? The truth is the listeners would feel bad for the speaker. The audience is actually rooting for you to succeed. The audience is a mirror reflection of the speaker. If you feel bad, the audience feels the same way.
Next time you have to give a public speech, think of yourself as the MVP, the most valuable player on a sport’s team who the audience loves and wants to see score the winning point.