Expect and Accept Your Nervousness

All speakers expect to feel nervousness. Excellent speakers accept this as a natural and useful response to stress. This means that you care about doing a good job. Expect nervousness and plan to manage the symptoms that accompany it. The tension that you experience can be used to energize your talk if you allow it to do so.

Failing to manage stress well is called distress. Using stress in a positive manner is called eustress.

Manage your nervousness
Communication experts German, Gronbeck, Ehninger and Monroe point out that there are no shortcuts to developing speaking confidence. Preparation is the key to successfully managing your nervousness.

Here are some additional helpful suggestions:

1. Breathe deeply (from your diaphragm).
2. Put your talk into proper perspective. Be realistic with your expectations.
   
3. Remember that your audience wants you to succeed.
4. Think of your presentation as a formal conversation with your audience.
5. Focus upon sharing your message rather than your own symptoms.
6. Think positively. Use imagery and/or visualization before your talk.
7. Plan, practice and prepare thoroughly

Is your level of nervousness more than, similar to, or less than others? Using James McCroskey's famous PRPSA, compare your level of apprehension with that other U.S. American speakers. Go to http://www.jamescmccroskey.com and click on Communication Research Measures. Scroll down to the Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA). This is a self-scoring instrument.