Why is public speaking so stressful?

Speaking
Written By Liam Sandford
stressed man

Remember the first time you drove a car? Or the first day of a new job? You had never done those things before. Nervous, heart racing and most likely heightened stress.

As you got used to driving and long after passing your test it became an activity you do on autopilot. No nervousness or stress, just a means of getting from A to B. You know how to drive the car. You have done it regularly through practice over and over again.

If you have a break from driving, or end up driving a new car you get that rusty feeling, and maybe there is more stress as a result.

Public speaking follows the same path. You are finding public speaking more stressful than it needs to be because the intentional practice has not been in place as you had with learning to drive. You don’t practice between high pressure speaking environments (board meetings, interviews, speeches) and it leaves you feeling rusty which leaves your performance up to chance. So what are the solutions?

Recent Reps

Confidence is success remembered. The easier it is to recall past successful public speaking practice the more confident you will be. With confidence comes reduced stress. Just like driving a car, you should speak in public regularly.

Have a speech coming up? Build a daily speaking habit for the 2 weeks before your event. That means speaking in front of people, not just practicing your presentation. Use Twitter Spaces, work meetings, conversations with family and friends — public speaking practice is everywhere with the right formula.

This assumes you already have the speaking foundations in place to get back up to speed. Luckily the daily speaking habit is the way to build up those foundations too. A daily rep in under 5 minutes is possible for everyone.

The comfortable environment

Speaking in person? On video? Or a phone call? All are relevant speaking experiences. Some people hate speaking on the phone — because they don’t do it often. Others hate standing in front of people on a stage with the audience looking up at them — more daunting, but the more often you do it the more comfortable you will become there.

In the world of virtual presentations you may have to deliver video presentations. That means being comfortable being on video. Build each of the environments into your regular speaking practice. That means every virtual meeting you go into, have your video on. Forget what everyone else is doing, do it for you.

Take yourself outside of your comfort zone to expand it and improve your speaking performance. Take phone calls or join social audio. Switch your video on. Speak to people in person. This will increase your familiarity and confidence with the environment you are presenting in. Comfortability is everything — turn your speaking environment into a comfortable place.

Make every rep count

Public speaking is definitely different from having a conversation, so how do you scale a conversation to be relevant to delivering a presentation? I get asked this question a lot and the answer is the nano speech. Make your conversational structure relevant by using the same structure you will in a presentation.

  • Open

  • Body

  • Close

That structure works for 10 seconds, and for 10 minutes. Once every day is enough to turn it into meaningful speaking practice. You can use it for everything you say but it is not necessary. The easiest place to use it in conversation is bringing up a new topic:

  • Open: I have been watching [programme] on the TV.

  • Body: [something about the storyline].

  • Close: Have you been watching it?

Every time you introduce a new topic give it a go. Intentionally think about getting a repetition in. The best part about it is the other person does not know you are practicing public speaking so, there is no pressure and nothing that could go wrong. You are just giving yourself a chance to build a successful rep which will help you scale up and build confidence as a speaker.

Actionable takeaways

  • If you have a presentation coming up don’t just practice your presentation, practice speaking in public to remove any rustiness. Don’t leave your performance up to chance.

  • Diversify the environments you are comfortable speaking in. Audio only, video, in person — all are important to be confident in.

  • Use the nano speech to build a daily speaking habit. This makes it easy to scale every day interactions into speaking practice.

More from me

Liam Sandford
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