Mastering the art of public speaking

In life, there are going to be a lot of skills where you should learn if you want to be able to succeed in the future. And among those skills, something that I believe is very crucial, not only for your academics but also for the future when you become an adult, is public speaking skills! I know that just by saying that, some people may have gotten scared already - public speaking is not as easy as it seems. And I hear you - however, if you are able to learn these skills, you are going to be able to help yourself a lot: public speaking is present in a lot of things in our lives. Personally, I used to be pretty uncomfortable with public speaking, but with a few tips that I am going to share with you today, I believe that you will be able to turn something you hate into something that you are actually interested in!

   Okay, so first of all, I know that it will be scary. Just the feeling of having hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at you when you are presenting (even things as small as holding out a small presentation in class) is just so horrible. What if people look away? What if people laugh or look doubtful? What if they hate the presentation? What if I mess up the whole presentation by saying something silly or inappropriate? These are all the things that can make a person nervous when it comes to public speaking. However, trust me, everyone when speaking in public will feel that way; so, at the end of the day, it is all about knowing how to control yourself and not let your fears and doubts win over. 

   First of all, learn to expose yourself to public speaking. No one will be able to master the art of public speaking as well as being able to capture the love of everyone the first time a person does it. It is all about getting yourself out of your comfort zone and keep practicing and practicing. In order to prepare yourself for talking to hundreds of people in the future, just take baby steps, and don’t rush - if you are still in school, ask to be the leader of group projects, for example. Start with talking to a group of, say, 6 to 8 people, and start with talking with people who you are not that close with. Practice until you are able to learn how to talk in front of these groups, before continuing on with presenting stuff in front of your class. I know that during this start, you will start to be able to find out that it can get very very scary. So what should you do during this time when you start upscaling the audience you are presenting to or talking to? Well, from these initial experiences that you have done, ask yourself this: “why am I scared of presenting to these people?” Do you know why some people are able to speak in public very well? Well, this comes from the fact that they are able to realize the things that are preventing them from success, and then they try to fix those things. For example, if your problem is that you are afraid you will forget the content during the presentation, try to prepare some notes before you actually start the presentation or do some rehearsals before you actually do the public speaking part. In other cases, some people are just afraid of being around a lot of people. So in dealing with this, why not try to be more open to people, why not try to expose yourself before you actually have a chance to talk to other people? When you have been able to feel the comfort from being with other people - even if they are strangers - then I believe that you are going to be able to practice public speaking well.

   Okay so when you are actually learning to do this, please keep one thing in mind: remember that you may not be able to ever cure the fear to do public speaking completely. Okay,  so to tell the truth some people are just afraid of public speaking without any reason: some people are just so afraid that even if they do training and rehearsals, they're still afraid of public speaking. Public speaking and knowing how to master it is a very long and arduous journey that requires a lot of effort and time. Because of this, it is completely fine if you're not able to master public speaking. However, the thing that I believe is very important is that you never give up, you let yourself try to do this often, and you practice and practice and practice all over again until you find this more comfortable, or until you're able to control your feelings of fear and nervousness.