What is the rationale behind our fear of delivering a talk?
The Book of Lists published a long time back says that the greatest scare of most people is that of public speaking and that this fear is far more than the fear of death. Further research in the subject has only confirmed this finding. Why is public speaking so stressful? It is due to extreme discomposure.
We are afraid of appearing stupid in front of other people, especially known groups like friends, co-workers and family. And the recall values of past discomfiting moments are so strong that we don’t even attempt to conquer our fears and change the scenario. And every time we are asked to address a group these memories haunt us.
These may not be of delivering a talk but of several incidents including stammering in class while reading, loss of memory on stage, being badly prepared during debates etc. And if we have had no memorable event to counter this then this scare will become a horror and might even result in requiring medical help.
Outcomes of the public speaking fear..
Makes us believe that we are “simply not capable”. We tend to begin conceptualizing an entire gamut of excuses to avoid addressing gatherings. “I don’t have anything great to say,” or “I have led a pretty mundane existence,” or “I am not used to doing this,” or “All that I know has been told by someone else,” etc. These and more such negative reaffirmations only serve to dumb us down and hinder our progress in public speaking.
This train thought results in a bad side-effect upon us i.e. we keep our head down at work, and never stand up to speak for ourselves, decline bigger positions and in effect damage our future career prospects. All these only lead to self-destruction and self-defeating attitudes which we accept and justify for our failure at career.
