​So, you have finally decided to do something about your public speaking anxiety and signed up for a course. Congratulations – you have taken a great first step! 

As a public speaking coach, I see so many people get amazing results – but not everyone gets what they need. Here are some tips that will maximise your chances of success.

I have been coaching young people and adults in public speaking for seven years – initially in a school as a volunteer – and now with adults as a paid coach. When I started, I experienced imposter syndrome. I was a good public speaker and had many coaching ideas. But how did I know I would be any good at it? My first paid course was stressful. What if I didn't get results? If people knew that it was my first paid gig, would they feel like I was experimenting on them?
 
I am sure there were some clunky bits at first. Although the core of my content has not changed, I am consistently tweaking how I present it. But the first course was a success. And I learn something from each course that has improved my coaching.
 
Four years after launching a website aimed at people with public speaking anxiety (and wondering whether anyone would sign up for my first course!) I am taking the opportunity to reflect on some things I have learned as a coach.
 
If you are considering taking a course, this article will give you some ideas on how to maximise your chances of success. If you are a coach, you may find some tips you can apply to your coaching.

Public speaking is a performance, but it is not the same as acting. There are two main differences. The first is fairly obvious – as an actor, you are being someone else, but as a public speaker, ideally you are being yourself. Many people struggle with being themselves in front of an audience. How often do you hear people go into 'presentation mode'? They take on a professional persona that is an unconscious form of acting.

The second difference is about your relationship with the audience. An actor pretends that the audience is not there. But as a public speaker, you are there to engage directly with the audience – you acknowledge your listeners. To the audience, you are the whole point – and vice versa. Otherwise,  you may as well just hand out notes!

Yoodli is an exciting new AI public speaking tool that I am using in my coaching.

A lot of my work is with people who have extreme public speaking anxiety that holds them back from achieving their career and life goals.
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In my experience, there are three things that people need to overcome a crippling fear of public speaking:

1. A supportive coach who can help build their self-confidence and bring about some mindset shifts
2. An understanding of the skills involved in public speaking
3. A safe place to practice their developing and newly acquired skills.

Yoodli won’t replace the coach but it is a great tool to enable safe practice and support skill development.

​Recently someone approach me for private coaching. She was nervous about an upcoming presentation. Before she ran through her presentation, she told me that her topic was important to her audience and she really wanted to have impact. Then she practiced her presentation by sharing her screen as she read, or sometimes paraphrased, a series of PowerPoint slides. 

She came across as professional, knowledgeable and confident. Had she not mentioned her desire to have impact, I would have been quite encouraging in my feedback. I would have suggested fewer words on the slides and starting and finishing without slides so that she was more visible to the audience. But I would have reassured her that presentation was as good as many work presentations I see.
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However, I knew that she would not achieve her goal of having impact. I could barely see her on my screen and I had read all the words on the slides before she spoke to them. I gave her positive feedback but I also told her that her presentation was not memorable. I also pointed out that she was adding very little value and she could just as easily have paused and let the audience read her slides for themselves!​

“Overcome”, “conquer”, “kill”, “get over”, and “cure the fear of public speaking” are all terms that people google. I know – I have done the keyword research!

If you are anxious about public speaking, you probably see your anxiety as a big problem. You worry that others will notice your nerves, that your mind will go blank, and that your audience will judge you harshly.
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All this is understandable. But this article explains why seeking to fight, eliminate or fix the fear is unrealistic and counterproductive. It suggests other strategies, such as shifting your focus and adjusting your self-talk.

​Remember learning to ride a bike? You probably started with training wheels. What happened when your parents removed the training wheels? Perhaps you went, wobble, wobble, wobble, splat. The next time the wobble lasted a little longer before the splat, and then maybe by the third or fourth time, you went wobble, wobble and then took off. You were away!

Would you have ever learned to ride a bike if you had kept the training wheels? Unlikely. Training wheels don’t teach you to balance; they just give you a feel for sitting on a bike.

Relying heavily on notes when you are learning to speak publicly is a bit like using training wheels on a bike. You will never be able to deliver a speech without notes if you always read your notes. Unlike training wheels, you may not need to ditch your notes altogether. But you will need to stop reading them!​

​The short answer is most people! But some people have extra high levels of anxiety about public speaking. This article explores how different personality types or attributes can affect people’s anxiety levels.

You have heard of 'Zoom fatigue' - the experience of feeling exhausted from being online all day.  But have you experienced 'Zoom panic'?

I have had a spate of recent calls from people who have had a bad experience presenting online. Some of them tell me they have never liked public speaking, but presenting online has made it worse.  Others are puzzled and concerned because they have considered themselves confident speakers until now.​

A typical example was a call from a young woman who recently ran an online webinar for 50 people. The experience had been traumatic for her. She described having a panic attack and then having a similar episode a few days later. 

A quick google tells me that these experiences are not uncommon. 'Zoom anxiety' is a thing.

Before the COVID19 pandemic, most people's experience of public speaking was to live audiences.

For people who have a fear of public speaking, you might think that the shift to Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other online platforms would have been a welcome relief. But, for most people, the nerves are just as bad online and sometimes worse.

A 2013 study (pre-pandemic obviously) verified this. The study's 70 participants gave a speech twice – once in-person and once online. The students' anxiety levels were assessed by a survey and heart rate monitoring. 

The students expected to be more nervous in-person. But their heart rates were just as high online as they were in person. Self-reported nerves, surveyed post-speaking were also just as high online. 

The study concluded:
"Based on results using both instruments, there were no significant differences in the amount of anxiety between delivering a traditional face-to-face speech and a speech given using web-conferencing technology."

Here are some reasons why I think that presenting online can be as anxiety-inducing as in-person. 

Lack of non-verbal feedback 
You probably feel more relaxed when you see your message resonating with others. Perhaps you get a nod or a smile, which can be very encouraging. But you tend to get less feedback online than in front of a live audience. 

People react less when they are not physically present. Some will have their cameras off. And even if they are responding positively, you should be looking at the camera most of the time, which means you won't see their reactions.  

Talking to a screen feels unnatural 
Have you ever felt disconnected or had an out-of-body experience when presenting to an audience? You can hear yourself talking, but you feel like you are an observer, not a participant? Online presenting can exacerbate such feelings because there is nothing natural about sitting in an empty room and speaking to a screen! Seeing yourself on the screen can also be disconcerting.  

And then there is the newness of the experience if you are not used to presenting online. I remember, many years ago, leaving a message on an answer-phone for the first time. I rambled and felt ridiculously self-conscious because I had never done it before!

You have an added worry – will the technology work? 
As if worrying about what you are going to say is not enough! Now you also have to worry about things like screen-sharing and whether your Wi-Fi connection is stable enough. 

It doesn't help that all of these online platforms all work a bit differently. Perhaps you are used to screen-sharing on Zoom, but now you are on Teams which is not quite the same. 

It is harder to retain the audience's attention 
As I said at the start, we are now all familiar with 'Zoom fatigue'.  There is just something about staring at screens that makes it more tiring for the listener.

Most of us sit when presenting online, even in situations where we would stand if presenting face-to-face. But this tends to make us less engaging. And audience members can be easily distracted by checking their phones or what is happening in the background. 

Even worse than getting little positive non-verbal feedback, you might think your audience members look bored! If that is true, it is probably not your fault, but it is natural to feel put-off by seeing people yawn! 

You may be feeling more anxious generally 
I often find that people who fear public speaking have some other sources of stress in their life that exacerbates their issues. And right now, the pandemic may be making everything worse for you.

Lockdowns have affected people in different ways, but perhaps it has been stressful for you due to loneliness, having children at home all the time, having to work in less-than-ideal conditions, or some other reason.

This is a significant factor, and it may explain why some people find presenting worse even online than face-to-face. 


That is quite a list! 

Of course, not everyone gets nervous about online presenting. Some people may even prefer it. But for many people, the lack of non-verbal feedback, worry about the technology, and oddness of talking to a screen can make online presenting feel uncomfortable. And more generalised anxiety that some people are feeling right now, can make things worse. 

Eight things you can do to make it easier 
Here are eight practical suggestions to make things a little easier for you. If you are usually a confident speaker, these things might be enough. But if you have always been a nervous speaker, you should also consider taking a public speaking course. 

1. Test your technology beforehand – many times! Set up a 'dummy meeting' to test things out. If you know your Wi-Fi is not stable, have a backup plan.
2. ​Practice your presentation online. Use your dummy meeting to practice your presentation out loud as if you had an audience. When you come to do it for real it won't feel so odd. 
3. Try to make your presentation interactive – even if this is just by using the chat function. Direct interaction usually works well to engage an audience. And it can help make up for the lack of non-verbal feedback. 
4. Consider standing – this probably sounds like your worst nightmare, but it will help you keep people's attention.
5. Hide self-view. If catching glimpses of yourself on screen is off-putting, you can hide self-view so that the audience can see you, but you can't see yourself. Here is how to do it in Zoom, and I understand that Teams will soon offer a similar feature. 
6. Keep it short – shorter than you would in person.
7. Try not to make assumptions about what people are thinking. If they are distracted, it's probably because of other things going on for them and nothing to do with you. I know I check my phone more often than I should when I am online!
8. Manage your general stress levels as much as possible. 

If you are experiencing 'Zoom panic'  you are not alone. I have anecdotal evidence that lots of people are going through something similar. And research appears to back up that people find presenting online just as stressful as in-person – even without the stress of a pandemic!

Hopefully, you will find some of these suggestions valuable. Remember to check out that public speaking course as soon as this is possible! It will get better the more you do it. It is tempting to make excuses and try to avoid it, but this will make it worse in the long run. 

Article written by Catherine Syme 

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When I ask my clients why they think so many people fear public speaking, they almost always talk about being judged. 
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​Concern about being judged is a significant factor, but it is only part of it. Someone with strong self-belief tends to worry less about being judged - they might even relish it. But being judged when you have self-doubt can create intense anxiety.