I’ve always admired people who speak their minds effortlessly.

Good speaking helps you connect with people and share ideas. It also helps you get better opportunities and enjoy life more. You can make what you know helpful to others, teaching and providing insight.

If you get the fundamentals right, you can use your public speaking skills for the rest of your life.

From Hesitation to Adventure

I have wanted to improve my public speaking abilities for years, but doubt and fear have always prevented me from doing so.

I was afraid I’d say something stupid.

I was afraid I’d lose my train of thought and embarrass myself.

I was afraid people would stop listening and get bored.

But all these fears kept me from reaching out to people with whom I could form relationships. They also prevented me from sharing my ideas, which might have been valuable or interesting to others. They made me avoid situations where I had to open up.

This only made the fear grow stronger.

It led to feeling ashamed about not being good enough.

Life can be challenging. It can terrify you into avoiding tough situations. You can flip this and think of it this way.

You’re already here, alive. You could be adventurous and live a little, even if it scares you.

Confronting and Accepting Fear: A Turning Point

I had a moment that convinced me to go head first into a public speaking situation.

I’ve wanted to speak at the impromptu sessions at my local Toastmasters meeting for years. But it terrified me at the same time. I’ve postponed it for a few years already. I felt a call to go and do it, and I have decided.

But whenever I thought of how it would happen, I felt terrified. I decided to share this feeling with my girlfriend even though it felt embarrassing (crazy, right?). She asked me about my experience with public embarrassment.

In 4th grade, I got embarrassed by the teacher in front of the class, which felt quite painful. But after that, I don’t have essential memories of embarrassing myself. That’s because I’ve been actively avoiding it. I avoided failing in public.

I felt a knot in my stomach sharing this.

To my surprise, my girlfriend still loved and accepted me when I shared my fear. Something unexpected happened, but I felt at peace with the situation.

I felt much lighter and happy to do whatever it took at the public speaking event that evening. Even thinking that I would embarrass myself felt chill and even funny.

Long story short, I went there to speak, expecting to embarrass myself. But I came out first place out of the other five people who participated in the competition that evening.

I felt amazed.

I prepared for the worst, jumped head first in the experience and won.

What helped me the most that day was to be open about my fear to myself and to a person who loved and accepted me.

The Fear, Avoidance, Shame Loop

Let’s take a step back and imagine the following scenario.

You keep your fear to yourself, stopping you from doing what you want. You may persuade yourself that you don’t wish to do it, only to grow resentful about it over time. Or, you beat yourself up for not taking action, lowering your self-esteem and getting to feel shame as a bonus. (tough situation)

In the past, I hesitated in trying out out of fear of failing and embarrassing myself.

I also had too much pride to tell someone close. I wanted to seem capable. The joke’s on me because this strategy got me stuck in this loop.

The way out was to become more conscious about my feelings and look for the truth instead of falling prey to the inner insecure voice.

That insecure voice closes our eyes to our inner greatness, which we don’t get to experience. You need to know why you want to do what you want. Then, you define your fear and imagine and accept the worst-case scenario.

Also, imagine how your life will look if you continue avoiding what you fear for one, two, three, or five years.

Then, find someone who loves, accepts and wants the best for you, such as a romantic partner, a parent, a friend or a cat.

It doesn’t matter who it is as long as they have good intentions and listening skills (meow). The hardest part is being open to them and yourself about what and why you fear.

Trust that they’ll accept you, and learn to accept it yourself.

Lose the perfectionism. Smile to yourself in the mirror. Feel the fear and say fuck it.

Then go ahead and do the thing you fear. Even if you fail, you will still feel good about yourself because you put yourself out there. It will still count as a win and a vote of confidence for yourself.

The small wins will slowly add up and build up your confidence, and you’ll experience being a winner.

You’ll be glad you did it and feel more fulfilled.

You’ll build more genuine relationships and get more opportunities. You can even improve other people’s perspectives with your ideas and provide value.

In summary, here are the most important steps:

1. Know why you want to do what you fear and what will happen if you keep putting it off out of fear.

2. Define the worst-case scenario of doing what you fear and accept it.

3. Be open with yourself and with someone who loves and accepts you.

4. Accept yourself as you are and feel more peaceful and courageous. :)

5. Be the hero of your story instead of waiting for a saviour or permission from a guru. Jump headfirst.

6. Win (even if you lose)

If you got to this point, I hope you felt inspired or learned something practical from this piece.

I’m excited to connect with people whether this resonates with them or not. I am open to discussing anything you would add to this topic.

Until next time.

Rock on and peace.