fear of public speaking college essay

Overcoming my Fear of Public Speaking

In this personal narrative, the writer will share their journey of overcoming the fear of public speaking. The essay will describe the challenges faced, strategies employed, and the personal growth experienced through this journey. It will discuss the impact of public speaking anxiety on personal and professional life and how overcoming it can lead to increased confidence and opportunities. The piece will provide insights and tips for others who struggle with similar fears, highlighting the importance of perseverance and self-improvement. On PapersOwl, there’s also a selection of free essay templates associated with Anxiety.

How it works

“Jagger, you’re up.” My eighth-grade Social Studies teacher glanced at me with her bespeckled eyes and congenial smile.

My heart raced. My cheeks turned bright red and my body shook as if it were about to cave in. In an attempt to hide my anxiety, I looked away from my peers as I walked toward the podium. A panel of three teachers sat in front of me with concerned looks on their faces, as if my anxiety had manifested itself into some sort of physical being, which was now displayed center stage in front of over thirty of my peers.

The butterflies in my stomach swarmed as if they were alarmed by a predator within my own gastrointestinal system. I opened my mouth and began to speak.

I had meticulously tweaked my speech several times over the past week to ensure I would be less nervous about the presentation. The five index cards allocated to me by my teacher were filled with microscopic notes I had made to ensure I remembered every detail. This effort, unfortunately, proved futile as I quickly lost my train of thought. Maintaining eye contact with my audience turned into me losing my place in my speech several times. Projecting my voice became a laborious act as my voice shook in agony of the task at hand. Midway through my speech, I stopped and left the room.

In light of what happened, I was taunted by my classmates who had much higher expectations of me. Up to this point I had been known to raise my hand in class, weigh in on debates, and ask questions without fear of being judged. It was the thought of standing in front of my classmates and breaking the silence that shook me to my core. I had ideas and beliefs heavy on my mind and no way to release them into the world.

After that day, I thought about my speech and ran through it once more in my head. In doing so, I thought about my discussion of the advancement of America throughout history and the connection I made to my personal motto, “Excelsior”. This word, which I chose to live by after hearing it in the film Silver Linings Playbook, means “onward to greater things”. Inspired by this concept, I realized the irrationality of my fear and from that point on, I did everything in my power to overcome it. In this process, my confidence soared. I jumped at the chance to get in front of my classmates and enthusiastically presented my thoughts whenever I was given the chance. I entered organizations that required public speaking and assumed leadership roles within them. Soon enough, the overbearing feeling I would get before presentations became nothing more than a trivial discomfort. It was as if the ideas I had inside me grew tired of hiding from the world and began to force themselves out of me.

Overcoming my fear of public speaking was a journey of self-improvement and discovery. That fear once kept me from countless leadership and educational opportunities that I now pursue with every chance I am given. I have continued to use my voice as a way to offer new insight into class discussions and to breathe new life into lessons that would be otherwise unstimulating. Doing these things allows me to not only reap more benefits from my education but also to show others who may still be terrified of speaking in front of their classmates that it is okay to come out of their shell. After all, everyone has meaningful opinions to offer, but it takes courage and confidence to express them. How can we possibly hope to change the world if we refuse to let our ideas be heard? 

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Why Are We Scared of Public Speaking?

Understanding the roots of this common fear can help us conquer it faster..

Posted November 27, 2017 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

• What Is Fear?
• Take our Generalized Anxiety Disorder Test
• Find a therapist to combat fear and anxiety
• There are many benefits to being a good public speaker.
• Fear of public speaking is very common, affecting about 25% of people.
• The fear may be caused by physiology, beliefs, specific situations, or lack of skill.

Communicating your ideas clearly and presenting them openly in a public forum is an essential component of success across several domains of life. Being a good public speaker can help you advance your career , grow your business, and form strong collaborations. It can help you promote ideas and move people to action on issues that affect them directly and society at large. To do any of these things well requires a fair amount of standing in front of an audience and delivering a pitch, an idea, or a body of work. And sometimes the only thing that stands between you and your audience is fear.

Glossophobia —a really cool and geeky name for the fear of public speaking —appears when you are performing or expecting to perform an oral presentation or a speech in front of other people. Fear of public speaking is frequently but incorrectly cited as people’s biggest fear. Fear of public speaking is often not people’s biggest fear; there are many other things that people are really scared of . Nevertheless, fear of public speaking is very common; approximately 25 percent of people report experiencing it.

While some people experience a debilitating form of glossophobia, even a mild form can have devastating effects. Fear of public speaking can prevent you from taking risks to share your ideas, to speak about your work, and to present your solutions to problems that affect many people—and as a result, it can affect how much you grow personally and professionally, and how much impact you can have. At the same time, any negative public speaking experiences will make it less likely that you will speak in public in the future—fear teaches you to protect yourself from risky situations.

Why Are We Afraid of Public Speaking?

Fear of public speaking is not so much related to the quality of a speech as it is to how the speaker feels, thinks, or acts when faced with speaking in public. There are many reasons why people become afraid when having to speak in public. The theories exploring the fear of public speaking have identified four contributing factors:

1. Physiology

Fear and anxiety involve the arousal of the autonomic nervous system in response to a potentially threatening stimulus. When confronted with a threat, our bodies prepare for battle. This hyperarousal leads to the emotional experience of fear, and it interferes with our ability to perform comfortably in front of audiences. Eventually, it prevents people from pursuing opportunities for public speaking.

Some researchers suggest that there are people who generally experience higher anxiety across different situations, and are therefore more prone to feel anxious about speaking in public as well. People who are predisposed to feeling anxious find it more challenging to master their anxiety and conquer their fear of public speaking and will opt to avoid it. For other people, the anxiety is limited to public speaking situations, but the physiological signs of fear they experience as they anticipate, prepare, and perform in public are similar.

Moreover, some people experience what researchers call anxiety sensitivity, or the fear of fear. Anxiety sensitivity means that in addition to being worried about public speaking, people are worried about their anxiety about public speaking and how their anxiety will affect their ability to perform in challenging communication situations. So, along with worrying about whether they will accomplish their objectives with their speech, people with high anxiety sensitivity also worry that they will be overwhelmingly anxious in front of their audience, and they will come across as a shaky speaker.

2. Thoughts

Another factor involves people’s beliefs about public speaking and about themselves as speakers. The fear often arises when people overestimate the stakes of communicating their ideas in front of others, viewing the speaking event as a potential threat to their credibility, image, and chance to reach an audience. Negative views of oneself as a speaker ( I am not good at speaking in front of crowds, I am not a good public speaker, I am boring , etc.) can also raise anxiety and augment the fear of speaking in public.

Some theories make the distinction between a performance orientation and a communication orientation. Performance orientation means you view public speaking as something that requires special skills, and you see the role of the audience as judges who are evaluating how good of a presenter you are. In contrast, communication orientation means that the main focus is on expressing your ideas, presenting information, or telling your story. For people with this orientation, the objective is to get through to their audience the same way they get through to people during everyday conversations.

Think about this in reverse: If you view any conversation that you have in the presence of another person as a form of “public” speaking, you have enough evidence that you can express yourself clearly and communicate effectively. You would then take the same approach to public speaking events where the focus is simply on sharing ideas and information. However, when the focus shifts from being heard and understood to being evaluated, the anxiety tends to be higher.

3. Situations

While there are people who by nature tend to be more anxious, or people who don’t think they are good at public speaking, there are certain situations that are likely to make most of us more anxious when presenting in a public forum.

• Lack of experience. As with anything else, experience builds confidence . When you don’t have a lot of stage hours under your belt, you are more likely to experience fear of public speaking.
• Degree of evaluation. When there is a real or imagined evaluation component to the situation, the fear is stronger. If you are speaking in front of a group of people who have the evaluation forms ready to fill out, you may feel more anxious.
• Status difference. If you are about to speak in front of people of higher status (e.g., people at your workplace in higher positions, or groups of accomplished professionals in your line of work), you may feel a higher dose of fear tingling through your body.
• New ideas. If you are sharing ideas that you have not yet shared in public, you may worry more about how people will receive them. When your public appearance involves presenting something new, you may feel more uncomfortable stating your position, taking questions from the audience, or dealing with those audience members who try to poke holes.
• New audiences. You may already have experience speaking in public and presenting to familiar audiences. You may, for instance, be used to speaking in front of professionals in your area of expertise. Fear may arise, however, when the target audience shifts. If you are standing in front of an audience that is very different from the people you usually speak to, your confidence may be a little shaky.

Finally, another factor that contributes to the fear of public speaking is how skilled you are in this area. While many people consider themselves naturally good speakers, there is always room for growth. The people who work on their skills, instead of relying on natural talent, are the speakers who stand out the most. There are many different approaches to enhancing this skill set and increasing competence in public speaking. Increased competence leads to increased confidence, which is an effective antidote to fear. Nevertheless, confidence alone does not translate into effective public speaking.

The many benefits of sharing information and ideas in public definitely outweigh the need to protect ourselves from the horror of having to speak in front of others. The next logical question is: How do we conquer this fear? Luckily, there are many approaches that work well, both in terms of building skills and boosting confidence.

Read more about how to conquer the fear of public speaking here .

LinkedIn image: fizkes/Shutterstock

Theo Tsaousides, Ph.D. is a neuropsychologist, assistant professor, and author of the book Brainblocks: Overcoming the Seven Hidden Barriers to Success .

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To Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking, Stop Thinking About Yourself

by Sarah Gershman

Summary .   

Even the most confident speakers find ways to distance themselves from their audience. It’s how our brains are programmed, so how can we overcome it? Human generosity. The key to calming the amygdala and disarming our panic button is to turn the focus away from ourselves — away from whether we will mess up or whether the audience will like us — and toward helping the audience. Showing kindness and generosity to others has been shown to activate the vagus nerve, which has the power to calm the fight-or-flight response. When we are kind to others, we tend to feel calmer and less stressed. The same principle applies in speaking. When we approach speaking with a spirit of generosity, we counteract the sensation of being under attack and we feel less nervous.

Most of us — even those at the top — struggle with public-speaking anxiety. When I ask my clients what makes them nervous, invariably they respond with the same answers:

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10.1 Managing Public Speaking Anxiety

Learning objectives.

• Discuss common sources of public speaking anxiety.
• Identify strategies for addressing public speaking anxiety.
• Employ strategies for addressing public speaking anxiety.

If you feel fear, anxiety, or discomfort when confronted with the task of speaking in front of an audience, you are not alone. National polls consistently show that public speaking is among Americans’ top fears (Bodie, 2010). Yet, since we all have to engage in some form of public speaking, this is a fear that many people must face regularly. Effectively managing speaking anxiety has many positive effects on your speech. One major area that can improve with less anxiety is delivery. Although speaking anxiety is natural and normal, it can interfere with verbal and nonverbal delivery, which makes a speech less effective. In this chapter, we will explore causes of speaking anxiety, ways to address it, and best practices of vocal and physical delivery.

Sources of Speaking Anxiety

Aside from the self-reported data in national surveys that rank the fear of public speaking high for Americans, decades of research conducted by communication scholars shows that communication apprehension is common among college students (Priem & Solomon, 2009). Communication apprehension (CA) is fear or anxiety experienced by a person due to real or perceived communication with another person or persons. CA is a more general term that includes multiple forms of communication, not just public speaking. CA can be further broken down into two categories. Trait CA refers to a general tendency to experience anxiety related to communication, in essence incorporating it into a person’s personality. State CA refers to anxiety related to communication that occurs in a particular situation and time (Bodie, 2010). Of college students, 15 to 20 percent experience high trait CA, meaning they are generally anxious about communication. Seventy percent of college students experience some trait CA, which means that addressing communication anxiety in a class like the one you’re taking now stands to benefit the majority of students (Priem & Solomon, 2009). Whether CA is a personal trait or not, we all occasionally experience state CA. Think about the jitters you get before a first date, a job interview, or the first day of school. The novelty or uncertainty of some situations is a common trigger for communication anxiety, and public speaking is a situation that is novel and uncertain for many.

Public speaking anxiety is a type of CA that produces physiological, cognitive, and behavioral reactions in people when faced with a real or imagined presentation (Bodie, 2010). Physiological responses to public speaking anxiety include increased heart rate, flushing of the skin or face, and sweaty palms, among other things. These reactions are the result of natural chemical processes in the human body. The fight or flight instinct helped early humans survive threatening situations. When faced with a ferocious saber-toothed tiger, for example, the body released adrenaline, cortisol, and other hormones that increased heart rate and blood pressure to get more energy to the brain, organs, and muscles in order to respond to the threat. We can be thankful for this evolutionary advantage, but our physiology hasn’t caught up with our new ways of life. Our body doesn’t distinguish between the causes of stressful situations, so facing down an audience releases the same hormones as facing down a wild beast.

The root of public speaking anxiety is the fight or flight instinct that is triggered when we face a fear. While we can’t completely eliminate anxiety, we can change how we cognitively process it.

Practical Cures – Anxiety – CC BY 2.0.

Cognitive reactions to public speaking anxiety often include intrusive thoughts that can increase anxiety: “People are judging me,” “I’m not going to do well,” and “I’m going to forget what to say.” These thoughts are reactions to the physiological changes in the body but also bring in the social/public aspect of public speaking in which speakers fear being negatively judged or evaluated because of their anxiety. The physiological and cognitive responses to anxiety lead to behavioral changes. All these thoughts may lead someone to stop their speech and return to their seat or leave the classroom. Anticipating these reactions can also lead to avoidance behavior where people intentionally avoid situations where they will have to speak in public.

Addressing Public Speaking Anxiety

While we can’t stop the innate physiological reactions related to anxiety from occurring, we do have some control over how we cognitively process them and the behaviors that result. Research on public speaking anxiety has focused on three key ways to address this common issue: systematic desensitization, cognitive restructuring, and skills training (Bodie, 2010). In addition, it is important to address the physical manifestations of speaking anxiety.

Systematic Desensitization

Although systematic desensitization may sound like something that would be done to you while strapped down in the basement of a scary hospital, it actually refers to the fact that we become less anxious about something when we are exposed to it more often (Bodie, 2010). As was mentioned earlier, the novelty and uncertainty of public speaking is a source for many people’s anxiety. So becoming more familiar with public speaking by doing it more often can logically reduce the novelty and uncertainty of it.

Systematic desensitization can result from imagined or real exposure to anxiety-inducing scenarios. In some cases, an instructor leads a person through a series of relaxation techniques. Once relaxed, the person is asked to imagine a series of scenarios including speech preparation and speech delivery. This is something you could also try to do on your own before giving a speech. Imagine yourself going through the process of preparing and practicing a speech, then delivering the speech, then returning to your seat, which concludes the scenario. Aside from this imagined exposure to speaking situations, taking a communication course like this one is a great way to directly engage in systematic desensitization. Almost all my students report that they have less speaking anxiety at the end of a semester than when they started, which is at least partially due to the fact they were forced to engage with speaking more than they would have done if they weren’t taking the class.

Cognitive Restructuring

Cognitive restructuring entails changing the way we think about something. A first step in restructuring how we deal with public speaking anxiety is to cognitively process through our fears to realize that many of the thoughts associated with public speaking anxiety are irrational (Allen, Hunter & Donohue, 2009). For example, people report a fear of public speaking over a fear of snakes, heights, financial ruin, or even death. It’s irrational to think that the consequences of giving a speech in public are more dire than getting bit by a rattlesnake, falling off a building, or dying. People also fear being embarrassed because they mess up or are evaluated negatively. Well, you can’t literally die from embarrassment, and in reality, audiences are very forgiving and overlook or don’t even notice many errors that we, as speakers, may dwell on. Once we realize that the potential negative consequences of giving a speech are not as dire as we think they are, we can move on to other cognitive restructuring strategies.

Communication-orientation modification therapy (COM therapy) is a type of cognitive restructuring that encourages people to think of public speaking as a conversation rather than a performance (Motley, 2009). Many people have a performance-based view of public speaking. This can easily be seen in the language that some students use to discuss public speaking. They say that they “rehearse” their speech, deal with “stage fright,” then “perform” their speech on a “stage.” I like to remind my students that there is no stage at the front of our classroom; it is a normal floor. To get away from a performance orientation, we can reword the previous statements to say that they “practice” their speech, deal with “public speaking anxiety,” then “deliver” their speech from the front of the room. Viewing public speaking as a conversation also helps with confidence. After all, you obviously have some conversation skills, or you wouldn’t have made it to college. We engage in conversations every day. We don’t have to write everything we’re going to say out on a note card, we don’t usually get nervous or anxious in regular conversations, and we’re usually successful when we try. Even though we don’t engage in public speaking as much, we speak to others in public all the time. Thinking of public speaking as a type of conversation helps you realize that you already have accumulated experiences and skills that you can draw from, so you aren’t starting from scratch.

Thinking of public speaking as a conversation with an audience rather than a performance for an audience can help reduce speaking anxiety.

The Open University – Speech – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Last, positive visualization is another way to engage in cognitive restructuring. Speaking anxiety often leads people to view public speaking negatively. They are more likely to judge a speech they gave negatively, even if it was good. They’re also likely to set up negative self-fulfilling prophecies that will hinder their performance in future speeches. To effectively use positive visualization, it’s best to engage first in some relaxation exercises such as deep breathing or stretching, which we will discuss more later, and then play through vivid images in your mind of giving a successful speech. This should be done a few times before giving the actual speech. Students sometimes question the power of positive visualization, thinking that it sounds corny. Ask an Olympic diver what his or her coach says to do before jumping off the diving board and the answer will probably be “Coach says to image completing a perfect 10 dive.” Likewise a Marine sharpshooter would likely say his commanding officer says to imagine hitting the target before pulling the trigger. In both instances, positive visualization is being used in high-stakes situations. If it’s good enough for Olympic athletes and snipers, it’s good enough for public speakers.

Skills Training

Skills training is a strategy for managing public speaking anxiety that focuses on learning skills that will improve specific speaking behaviors. These skills may relate to any part of the speech-making process, including topic selection, research and organization, delivery, and self-evaluation. Skills training, like systematic desensitization, makes the public speaking process more familiar for a speaker, which lessens uncertainty. In addition, targeting specific areas and then improving on them builds more confidence, which can in turn lead to more improvement. Feedback is important to initiate and maintain this positive cycle of improvement. You can use the constructive criticism that you get from your instructor and peers in this class to target specific areas of improvement. Self-evaluation is also an important part of skills training. Make sure to evaluate yourself within the context of your assignment or job and the expectations for the speech. Don’t get sidetracked by a small delivery error if the expectations for content far outweigh the expectations for delivery. Combine your self-evaluation with the feedback from your instructor, boss, and/or peers to set specific and measurable goals and then assess whether or not you meet them in subsequent speeches. Once you achieve a goal, mark it off your list and use it as a confidence booster. If you don’t achieve a goal, figure out why and adjust your strategies to try to meet it in the future.

Physical Relaxation Exercises

Suggestions for managing speaking anxiety typically address its cognitive and behavioral components, while the physical components are left unattended. As we learned earlier, we can’t block these natural and instinctual responses. We can, however, engage in physical relaxation exercises to counteract the general physical signs of anxiety caused by cortisol and adrenaline release, which include increased heart rate, trembling, flushing, high blood pressure, and speech disfluency.

I liken confronting the physical aspects of public speaking anxiety to chemical warfare. Some breathing and stretching exercises release endorphins, which are your body’s natural antidote to stress hormones. Deep breathing is a proven way to release endorphins. It also provides a general sense of relaxation and can be done discretely, even while waiting to speak. In order to get the benefits of deep breathing, you must breathe into your diaphragm. The diaphragm is the muscle below your lungs that helps you breathe and stand up straight, which makes it a good muscle for a speaker to exercise. To start, breathe in slowly through your nose, filling the bottom parts of your lungs up with air. While doing this, your belly should pooch out. Hold the breath for three to five full seconds and then let it out slowly through your mouth. After doing this only a few times, many students report that they can actually feel a flooding of endorphins, which creates a brief “light-headed” feeling. I lead my class in breathing exercises before the first few days of speeches. Once you have practiced and are comfortable with the technique, you can do this before you start your speech, and no one sitting around you will even notice. You might also want to try this technique during other stressful situations. Deep breathing before dealing with an angry customer or loved one, or before taking a test, can help you relax and focus.

Discretely stretching your wrists and calf muscles is a good way to relieve anxiety and get your energy flowing while waiting to speak.

Public Domain Pictures – public domain.

Stretching is another way to quickly and effectively release endorphins. Very old exercise traditions like yoga, tai chi, and Pilates teach the idea that stretching is a key component of having a healthy mind and spirit. Exercise in general is a good stress reliever, but many of us don’t have the time or willpower to do it. We can, however, all take time to do some stretching. Obviously, it would be distracting for the surrounding audience if a speaker broke into some planking or Pilates just before his or her speech. Simple and discrete stretches can help get the body’s energy moving around, which can make a speaker feel more balanced and relaxed. Our blood and our energy/stress have a tendency to pool in our legs, especially when we’re sitting. The following stretch can help manage the physical manifestations of anxiety while waiting to speak. Start with both feet flat on the floor. Raise your back heels off the floor and flex and release your calf muscles. You can flex and release your calves once before putting your heels back down and repeating, or you can flex a few times on each repetition. Doing this three to five times should sufficiently get your blood and energy moving around. Stretching your wrists can also help move energy around in your upper body, since our huge amounts of typing and using other electronic controllers put a lot of stress on this intersection of muscles, tendons, and bones. Point one hand up at the wrist joint, like you’re waving at someone. Then use your other hand to pull, gently, the hand that’s pointing up back toward your elbow. Stop pulling once you feel some tension. Hold the hand there for a few seconds and release. Then point the hand down at the wrist joint like you’re pointing at something on the floor, and use the other hand to push the hand back toward your elbow. Again, stop pushing when you feel the tension, hold the stretch for a few seconds, and release. You can often do this stretch discretely as well while waiting to speak.

Vocal Warm-Up Exercises

Vocal warm-up exercises are a good way to warm up your face and mouth muscles, which can help prevent some of the fluency issues that occur when speaking. Newscasters, singers, and other professional speakers use vocal warm-ups. I lead my students in vocal exercises before speeches, which also helps lighten the mood. We all stand in a circle and look at each other while we go through our warm-up list. For the first warm-up, we all make a motorboat sound, which makes everybody laugh. The full list of warm-ups follows and contains specific words and exercises designed to warm up different muscles and different aspects of your voice. After going through just a few, you should be able to feel the blood circulating in your face muscles more. It’s a surprisingly good workout!

Sample Vocal Warm-Ups

• Purse your lips together and make a motorboat sound. Hold it for ten seconds and repeat. “BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB.”
• Clench your teeth and say, “N, N, N, N,” to stretch your cheek muscles.
• Say “Mum” five times, and open your mouth and eyes wide each time you say it.
• Say “Puh” five times, making sure to use your diaphragm to enunciate the h .
• Say “Red Rover” ten times, overenunciating each r .
• Say “Wilbur” ten times, overenunciating the w and r .
• Say “Bumblebee” ten times, enunciating each b .
• Say “Red letter, yellow letter” five times, making sure to distinctly pronounce each word.
• Say “Selfish shellfish” five times, making sure to distinctly pronounce each word.
• Say “Unique New York” five times, enunciating the q and k .

Top Ten Ways to Reduce Speaking Anxiety

As you can see in this section, there are many factors that contribute to speaking anxiety, and there are many ways to address it. The following is a list of the top ten ways to reduce speaking anxiety that I developed with my colleagues, which helps review what we’ve learned.

• Remember, you are not alone. Public speaking anxiety is common, so don’t ignore it—confront it.
• Remember, you can’t literally “die of embarrassment.” Audiences are forgiving and understanding.
• Remember, it always feels worse than it looks.
• Take deep breaths. It releases endorphins, which naturally fight the adrenaline that causes anxiety.
• Look the part. Dress professionally to enhance confidence.
• Channel your nervousness into positive energy and motivation.
• Start your outline and research early. Better information = higher confidence.
• Practice and get feedback from a trusted source. (Don’t just practice for your cat.)
• Visualize success through positive thinking.
• Prepare, prepare, prepare! Practice is a speaker’s best friend.

“Getting Critical”

How Much Emphasis Should We Place on Delivery?

Before you read the rest of the chapter, take some time to think about the balance between the value of content and delivery in a speech. We know it’s important to have solid content and to have an engaging and smooth delivery to convey that content, but how should each category be weighted and evaluated? Most people who have made it to college can put the time and effort into following assignment guidelines to put together a well-researched and well-organized speech. But some people are naturally better at delivering speeches than others. Some people are more extroverted, experience less public speaking anxiety, and are naturally more charismatic than others. Sometimes a person’s delivery and charisma might distract an audience away from critically evaluating the content of their speech. Charismatic and well-liked celebrities and athletes, for example, are used to endorse products and sell things to the public. We may follow their advice because we like them, instead of basing our choice on their facts or content. Aristotle, Cicero, and other notable orators instructed that delivery should be good enough to present the material effectively but not so good or so bad that it draws attention to itself. But in today’s celebrity culture, the bling or packaging is sometimes more valued than the contents. This leads us to some questions that might help us unpack the sometimes tricky relationship between content and delivery.

• Do you think worries about content or delivery contribute more to speaking anxiety? Explain your choice.
• How should someone be evaluated who works hard to research, organize, and write a speech, but doesn’t take the time to practice so they have a good delivery? What if they practice, but still don’t deliver the speech well on speech day?
• How should we evaluate a speaker who delivers an engaging speech that gets the audience laughing and earns a big round of applause but doesn’t verbally cite sources or present well-organized ideas?
• Is it ethical for someone to use their natural charisma or speaking abilities to win over an audience rather than relying on the merit and strength of their speech content? In what speaking situations would this be more acceptable? Less acceptable?

Key Takeaways

• Getting integrated: Public speaking anxiety is a form of communication apprehension (CA) that is commonly experienced by many people and can be effectively managed using a variety of strategies. While we most often think of public speaking anxiety as an issue in the classroom and workplace, it can affect communication in personal and civic contexts as well.
• Systematic desensitization helps lessen public speaking anxiety through repeated exposure to real or imagined public speaking scenarios.
• Cognitive restructuring addresses public speaking by replacing negative thoughts with more positive thoughts, and COM therapy can help you view public speaking as a conversation rather than a performance.
• Skills training allows you to focus on improving specific skills related to public speaking, which can increase confidence and lead to further skill development.
• Physical relaxation exercises like deep breathing and stretching allow us to voluntarily use our bodies to address involuntary bodily reactions to anxiety.
• Test your speaking anxiety using McCroskey’s “Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety” (PRPSA). You can access the scale here: http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/measures/prpsa.htm . Follow the directions to determine your score. Do you agree with the result? Why or why not?
• Of the strategies for managing public speaking anxiety listed in the chapter (systematic desensitization, cognitive restructuring, skills training, physical relaxation exercises), which do you think would be most useful for you and why?
• When you take a communication course like this one, you are automatically engaging in some skills training. What are some public speaking skills that you are already good at? What are some skills that you should work on? Write out three goals you would like to accomplish for your next speech that focus on improving your public speaking skills.

Allen, M., John E. Hunter, and William A. Donohue, “Meta-analysis of Self-Report Data on the Effectiveness of Public Speaking Anxiety Treatment Techniques,” Communication Education 38, no. 1 (2009): 54–76.

Bodie, G. D., “A Racing Heart, Rattling Knees, and Ruminative Thoughts: Defining, Explaining, and Treating Public Speaking Anxiety,” Communication Education 59, no. 1 (2010): 70.

Motley, M. T., “COM Therapy,” in Avoiding Communication: Shyness, Reticence, and Communication Apprehension , eds. John A. Daly, James C. McCroskey, Joe Ayres, Tim Hopf, and Debbie M. Ayers Sonandre (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2009), 379–400.

Communication in the Real World Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Home / Essay Samples / Life / Fear / Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking

Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking

• Category: Life , Sociology , Psychology
• Topic: Fear , Personal Life , Phobias

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