Self Confidence

SELF – CONFIDENCE

Self – confidence in public speaking is the positive feeling of the speaker that he can face up to an audience and deliver a good, if not brilliant, speech.

If you worry excessively over your speech, i.e., during preparation and even at the time of delivery, you lack self – confidence.
If you know that despite your own deficiencies you can speak successfully, you have self – confidence.
If you overlook, whether intentionally or not, your own deficiencies or overestimate your capabilities, you are overconfident.

Confidence and tension are interrelated. Lack of self – confidence is a problem for beginners. It causes them to be overly tense. Too much tension makes them less confident.

Bad Effects of Lack of Self – Confidence and Unnecessary Tension

Your body trembles.
Your voice trembles.
You feel small.
You fidget and feel uncomfortable.
Your thinking faculties are paralyzed.
Your mind goes blank.
During delivery, you do things you rather not, or do not do things that you should.
You lapse into long embarrassing pauses.
You stammer and stumble throughout the speech delivery.

Nervous Tension

There is always some amount of tension in our body unless we are already dead. It is at its minimum when we are asleep, and it is in its maximum when we are irritated because of some unpleasant happening or excited because we expect an important event to happen. Thus, just before we speak in public, tension should be at its peak. As soon as we begin to speak, tension should subside. If it does not, it only means that are fully concentrated on the speech, but we are self – conscious, i.e., we still harbor thoughts about ourselves and about committing mistakes.

The fear that gives rise to nervousness is nature’s way of protecting us from getting into serious trouble. It is a natural reaction to unfamiliar situations.
While nervousness is natural, people do not really expect speakers to show signs of nervousness. If you do, people will not usually pay serious attention to you. It reveals the fact that you are novice, lacking of experience. Often listeners laugh at your nervousness. They are not really laughing at you. They picture themselves in your situation and are relieved that they are not in your place.
Even if your heartbeat is racing a thousand times a minute, if you do not exhibit any external act of nervousness, no one will certainly know about your nervousness.

THE ANATOMY OF FLATFORM/STAGE FRIGHT

Reasons why you lack self – confidence

Shyness
Platform fright may be a result of shyness as a personality trait. One may be naturally shy. There is no alternative but to try to overcome this.
Try to improve your day – to – day dealings with people. Speak in company. Say something. Develop confidence in your manner of speaking and in your actuations with them. This will help you curb whatever excess fears you may have of audiences.

Inexperience
A person who has little or no experience at all in delivering speeches generally lacks self – confidence. He usually does not know what to say, or he does not have the faculty of saying it, either as to method or language. It might also be that he is usually afraid to commit mistakes in public.
As you gain more and more experience, your confidence proportionately increases. It has truly said that an experienced person is merely one that who has already committed a lot of mistakes.

Unpreparedness
It makes the speaker very much ill at ease.
Prepare for the job.

Decisiveness of the Speech
The speech is decisive of your future. Sometimes, you feel that the speech you are about to deliver will make or break you; will bring you rewards and honors or relegate you to oblivion.

Fear of the Unknown
At times, you are afraid because you do not know what is ahead of you. Getting to know way ahead of time the exact place where you are going to speak lessens tension tremendously. Your mind is conditioned and prepare for the coming event.

Effects of Drinks and Drugs
Drinking makes you lose some control in your faculties. The effect on your delivery might be the opposite of what you expect. You become emboldened to do things you may regret later on. You may act in an odd manner.

Drinking is habit - forming. It makes you excruciatingly dependent on it. If you have become used to it before speaking to audiences, you will find yourself at a total loss if you are about to deliver a speech and you cannot find any hard liquor or drink.

What has been said about drinks should also be true for drugs, if not more so.

There are those who are now used to taking tranquilizers to clam their nerves. Tranquilizers calm and deaden. Your delivery will generally have no life.

Peace and Poise
A self – confident person has peace of mind and poise in delivery.

HOW TO GAIN SELF – CONFIDENCE AND EQUANIMITY

1. Take care of your physical appearance; be well groomed at all times.
Ø The first step toward any ego development is to concern oneself with how one looks to the outside world, not only when one is scheduled to deliver a speech, but every minute that one is seen in public. Build an image that gives your personality, elicits respect, and endows you with leadership qualities of a good speaker.
Ø Good grooming is always an asset. It determines your level in the eyes of the public. The saying “clothes make the man,” still holds true.

2. Prepare well.
Ø A good deal of success in public speaking hinges on preparation.
Ø Even to the very experienced, some amount of practice is still needed.
Ø Do not wait to go through a bad speech before realizing the importance of preparing well.

3. Face up to your audience.
Look at individual audience straight in the eye. Talk to them as you should.
Ø Practice by establishing good eye contact with those you talk or talk in ordinary conversation. Study yourself. If you cannot look somebody straight in the eye in the constant manner while you are talking, you may have the same difficulty when speaking in public.

4. Exercise before delivery and more within proper bounds during delivery.
Ø Physical movement relaxes your muscles and minimizes tension. The tension in a speaker’s body will substantially diminish if his muscles are loosened.
Ø Before speaking, exercise your limbs and body. Take deep breaths with numbered regularity to keep your voice mechanism in good working order. To ensure proper articulation, exercise the muscles around the mouth; open the mouth to its fullest.
Ø While speaking, gestures and walking once in a while re helpful physical movements. However, make sure that that any movement of the hand, body, head or limb must not only be within legitimate bounds but must also be appropriate.

5. Concentrate on your speech and on your audience.
Ø In delivering the speech, the speaker should concentrate on the subject matter of his speech and on his audience. That way he thinks less about himself. That way too, he can be substantive about his speech and be truly communicative with his audience.

6. Be determined.
Ø Success is usually the result of a reasonably brave adventure into the unknown. Only if you are determined not to give up can see yourself through.



7. Feel confident.
Ø Start your speech as if you have no stage fright. Do not start your speech with an apology. Never begin your speech with confession of inadequacy. Confidence can help you forget your stage fright.

8. Do not prepare a long speech.
Ø After you have delivered the message of your speech, you stop. If you extent your time, the longer you prolong the agony.
Ø If you fail to deliver an effective speech as expected, do not despair. Consider everything as a learning experience. Accept criticism. Consider learning.