Advice for public-speaking anxiety

pugmadkate
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:56:13 +0000

I love public speaking, I always have and can still remember the sheer joy when a teacher would say we could do a written or oral report. I wish I could make a living doing it. It was in taking a mandatory public speaking class that I learned how truly frightened of it most people are.

A lot of my classmates spoke of being afraid of making fools of themselves. I’ve always just assumed the audience was on my side and I think that’s a big key as to why I’ve always been comfortable with it. Perhaps your daughter could remind herself that most people do not like public speaking, that most of her audience admires her for getting up there to speak and it really rooting for her to do well.

Since I took that class, I am almost always that friendly person that a speaker will focus on. I pay attention, I lean in, I nod and I smile when appropriate. I’ll even give a little thumbs up on the sly!