Speaking Anxiety: A Loss of Confidence

A friend of mine, who is a very successful consultant, told me that she has lost her confidence as a speaker. For twenty years she has been speaking to large groups of clients and potential clients with success.  Now she feels very unsure of herself.

She reports to me that she’s terrified of going blank.  While she used to trust herself to speak without slides, and instead drew pictures on a flipchart or whiteboard, now she prepares a script and a set of detailed slides.  She says that her voice shakes, her hands tremble, and her eyes dart from side to side as she speaks.

I respect this person, and feel honored to be trusted with her struggle.  She told me that she has gotten a medication to help her, and it works.  She’s feeling better.

But that solution is not appropriate for everyone.  It’s expensive, might cause side effects, and some of us are opposed to pharmaceutical assistance when it comes to our “valor under fire.”  Plus, it could take the edge off–the edge that makes great musicians play dramatically better when under pressure to connect with a live audience.

What can you do if you lose your nerve, and feel your performance skills deteriorating?

Refuse to speak?  Few of us have that option.

Confess to the client or the meeting host that you are having a crisis of confidence and ask to be relieved of the duty to address the room?  Not a good idea–not unless the client or host is a long-time friend who will keep your secret and cover for you.

Lie, and say you’re not feeling well?    That’ll work.  Once.

Pray?  That could work for some.  After preparing like a maniac, throw yourself on the mercy of your God.  Trust your fate to His/Her guidance.  Give it everything you’ve got and hope that Someone is watching.

Rehearse more than usual?  Prepare so thoroughly that even if you pass out with anxiety you can still get your point across?   Yes!   The knowledge that you did everything within your power to ensure your success will strengthen you.  Anticipate everything that could possibly go wrong and develop a strategy for dealing with each potential disaster.  The performance will probably seem easy compared to the rehearsals.

Act as if you’re confident?  Absolutely!  We know instinctively that confidence is the essential ingredient for our success, and we constantly make every effort to demonstrate confidence to others.  A speaker without confidence does not inspire others to have confidence in her.

As a matter of fact, you can use posture and gesture to alter your inner state.  Just as emotions tend to shape our bodies, our bodies can also influence our emotions.  In private, find a gesture that gives you a good feeling (like Tiger Woods pumping his fist) and do it over and over.  Try it at different tempos.  Then, simply imagine you’re doing it while standing still.  The image of the gesture will inform your behaviors and stimulate a sensation that can help you overcome your negative feeling.

Smile?  Yes, if you can manage to do so.  Anxious speakers tighten the muscles of the face which makes a mask that listeners recognize.  Work hard to smile.  Charles Strobel of Yale University demontrated that a smile literally changes your brain chemistry and diminishes your experience of fear.

Lift your eyebrows?  Believe it or not, yes!  Lifting the eyebrows is a universal gesture that indicates surprise and delight.  It will help you feel those emotions, and it will make the audience respond positively to you.  By the way, raising the eyebrows also brings the voice forward and helps you be more expressive.

Remember to breathe?  Yup, that works too.  As you prepare for the event, and you feel anxiety rising, sit quietly and become mindful of your breathing.  Watch it come in and out.  Try counting your breaths while saying to yourself, “I’m breathing in ONE; I’m breathing out ONE.  I’m breathing in TWO; I’m breathing out TWO,” all the way to TEN.  Then start again.

While you’re doing this, send your mind on an inspection of your body.  Check out your legs, your lower back, your shoulders, your neck, your forehead.  See if any area is experiencing tension.  If so, tell it to relax.  Or imagine that you’re breathing in and out through the tense spot.

Here’s another technique.  Count your breaths from 100 to zero.  The effort to concentrate on your breath while counting backwards takes the mind away from your pre-occupation with your anxiety.

Finally, envision yourself succeeding–over and over again.  Picture it in detail.  What do you look like when you’re succeeding during the speech?  What do you sound like?  What are you doing?  What’s the audience doing?  How do you feel while you’re succeeding in your vision?

Confidence can be defined as the expectation of positive outcomes.  Talk to yourself in a positive manner, so that your subconscious mind absorbs positive messages.  Do that long enough, and your self-image changes.  You begin to think of yourself as, “The kind of person who speaks well in public.”

And that can make a huge difference in your performance.