40. Gain confidence with public speaking. Go on a course if necessary!

DONE!

When I was new in my current job, I was asked to attend a meeting, not realising that they were going to ask me to do a presentation on what I did and what I wanted to achieve by the end of the year. Totally unprepared, I waffled, stammered, perspired and eventually gave up half way through when I looked up at my audience to see a few people tapping away on their laptops, others texting and the rest looking bored.

I am a writer and am far more comfortable in my area than I am talking to people. Part of this is chronic shyness and thinking that I have nothing of value to share with people and an awful awareness of my high pitched horrible voice.

However, I realised that this was getting me nowhere and making me look like an idiot. When it came to presentations, I was never picked and simply had to sit through my colleagues’ talks (usually written by me), simply nodding. Last night I went on a mini workshop where the idea was that speaking in public is simply a conversation with more people, and we were given the opportunity to try this out.

Many people have the same feelings, and even people who appeared to be good public speakers didn’t enjoy speaking in public and had horror stories similar to mine.

I have of course, had good public speaking experiences, but like most people, tend to remember the negative ones! I have noticed that preparation is the key – when I go through things in my head, I can visualise good outcomes and then they do tend to follow in real life!! Though I’ll never be comfortable, I’m going to stand up straight, smile, glance at my notes and just do it. What’s the worst that could happen?!