1st Reflection Blog

Chemjobber shares his secrets to overcoming a fear of public speaking

                  Reflection

                                                                   By: Vlada Nekrasov

        Public speaking has been a subject I have been avoiding for some time, but I decided I could no longer escape the inevitable. As a requirement for my degree, I knew that I was going to have to overcome my fear head on if I wanted to be more successful in the future. When I saw that this course was available virtually, I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to begin my journey. I hated feeling like I was the only person who felt anguish when it came to speaking to a crowd and I decided it was finally time to put this anxiety behind me. Some people are just so naturally good at it, but I never have been nor did I ever envision that I will ever be speaking on a stage. I consider myself to be more of a reserved person that prefers one-on-one interaction, but being a better speaker will help me in the forthcoming personal and business relationships. It improves: critical thinking skills, leadership skills, self-confidence, verbal skills, and strengthens listening skills. These attributes will be beneficial to me in the real world so I am excited to take on this challenge and conquer my fears.                               

"According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy."

        If you have Glossophobia, or fear of public speaking, you may have experienced some of these symptoms. Imagine that you have worked hard on your speech and feel confident about your work, but the nerves start to kick in as soon as it’s your turn. When your name gets called you begin to feel the anxiety in the pit of your stomach. Your heart begins to beat faster, blood pressure starts to rise and you start sweating. Suddenly your mouth starts getting dry and you can't keep your hands still. Your muscles get tense and your nausea makes you feel like you’re about to vomit right there in front of everyone. Everything pretty much seems to go downhill from there. Does this sound like you? Now obviously everyone experiences Glossophobia differently, but I can imagine the common denominator is being in front of a bunch of strangers, all eyes and ears on you. About 75% of the national population may feel these symptoms and share the fear of public speaking. Did you know that most people fear speaking in public over death?! I never thought that the numbers were this high but it does make me feel better that there are many people out there that also do not enjoy giving a speech. However, I am trying to change that this semester by taking this class.

public speaking infographic      

        One of the main reasons I wanted to take this course was because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. Sometimes, the things that challenge us can give us long-lasting rewards in life. This not only will apply to my personal life but contribute to my professional success as well. Public speaking isn’t only for people that will find themselves speaking to a crowd, but the personal developments learned in taking such a class could develop better self-esteem, increase social connections and enhance professional relationships. If you learn how to have healthy discussions it can improve your arguments and teach you how to influence others through persuasion. By learning how to eliminate fear, it can help you excel in job interviews and offer you career advancement. By being a poised public speaker, people will see you as an authoritative figure that people would remember. Most importantly, by being honest about the subject you are talking about will give you credibility and connect with the audience on a deeper level.

  Becoming a Public Speaker - ppt video online download

                                                                     Group Presentation

        In college we are mostly used to doing assignments on our own and it is very rare that we have to do a group project. At first I was nervous when you introduced this assignment because people work at different paces due to their schedules and/ or have different work ethic. Some people do not work well together or the workload is not distributed evenly amongst the group. However, this was not the case for group 3. Even if the assignment was not graded individually, I would have not been concerned if we were graded as a group. We had a great team leader who was very involved, but throughout the process the entire group communicated effectively. I am sure that all of us had a hefty schedule, but we made sure that we were all on the same page about the assignment. Overall, that helped us learn from each other and succeed on that particular task. I think we created a visually appealing presentation with videos, graphs, pictures and had strong speakers that engaged with the crowd. I think there is always something that we can improve on but that comes with practice and time. This was our first assignment, but I think we nailed it!                                      

        Listening to all the speakers and watching them present was a good learning experience as well. Some of the stronger speakers made it fun with imagery, videos and their tone of voice. They were able to keep us intrigued during their powerpoint and engage in conversation. Some people were nervous, only reading what was on the slide or maybe didn’t practice enough. However, everyone did a great job at presenting and if the statistics about Glossophobia are correct, most of us were pretty nervous about doing the speech.

                                                     The essence of public speaking - Newspaper - DAWN.COM

               Personally, I was a little disappointed with how I presented, but I am hoping to do better on the next one about Mortgage Rates. Due to technical difficulties with the volume, we weren’t able to play the video that I selected for the first slide. We decided to skip it, but unfortunately this altered the flow and time of my presentation quite a bit. It ended up sounding more dull and I wasn’t prepared for what to say in that unplanned scenario. However, these kinds of things may happen in real life and we just have to prepare for any circumstance that may occur during the speech. Next time, I will be prepared for a plan b with an extra notecard just in case.  Every speech will teach you something that will improve your next one and that is the most important part.


Sources:

https://www.verywellmind.com/glossophobia-2671860

https://www.psycom.net/glossophobia-fear-of-public-speaking

https://virtualspeech.com/blog/what-are-the-benefits-of-public-speaking

https://bigimpacthq.com/blog/public-speaking-benefits/

https://business.tutsplus.com/articles/benefits-of-public-speaking--cms-30694

https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/chapter/1-1-why-is-public-speaking-important/

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