How to overcome your fears and be more confident
People who are interested in their personal growth and development do lots of weird and wonderful things like jumping off cliffs or out of planes, walking on hot coals or broken glass. There are lots of different seminars all over the world presented by many organisations. They are mainly designed to confront your fears and achieve big life goals. It’s all about stepping out of your comfort zone and making changes in your life.
Most people’s greatest fear is public speaking. According to the Book of lists, it is the number one fear. It out ranks the fear of death by two to one – people would rather die than stand and speak before a group! This comes from an inbuilt fear of strangers; the brain interprets public speaking as being surrounded by strangers, or enemies.
Public Speaking Creates Confidence
It logically follows then that if this fear is confronted and overcome it would be a huge achievement for most people, one that would transform their lives.
The other major bonus for developing the ability to be effective in front of a group is that it builds confidence in yourself, which rubs off on everything else you do. The reason for this is that, unlike acting, an effective public speaker needs to be themselves when they are in front of a group of people. Your ability to communicate with a group will greatly enhance your ability to communicate with individuals, as well as lift your level of confidence in any kind of business or social setting.
I noticed when I started to regularly speak in public how much my confidence grew. I always used to feel awkward when I walked into a room in which there were people I didn’t know. These days when I find myself in this situation it not unusual for me to confidently walk around the room and say hello to all the people I know and then I go and introduce myself to many of the ones I don’t know. And I do this without really thinking about it much. In the past I just didn’t have the confidence to do this sort of thing. I used to wait to be introduced to people by someone else and then got upset when nobody did it.
This sort of confidence comes from learning to make a big impact at the beginning of a presentation. This skill, when developed as a habit, automatically follows through to all social and business occasions.
To achieve this type of change, like any other skill, requires learning and practice.
I firmly believe that if someone can overcome their fear of public speaking they can overcome any fear.
