7 ways to conquer fear

ways to conquer your fear of public speaking Content starts here If you hate public speaking, you’re not alone. In surveys of the top phobias, the fear of public speaking (glossophobia) ranks number one worldwide – ahead of the fear of spiders, heights, flying and even death. In fact, three out of every four individuals suffer from speech anxiety. The good news is, public speaking is a skill that can be learned and mastered. We’ve compiled some best practices and proven strategies that will help you fight presentation anxiety the next time you have to speak before an audience. Accept and tame your fear Start by accepting that you get nervous every time you have to speak in public; it is nothing to be embarrassed about. Now confront your fear by making an effort to do something about it. The worst thing you can do is avoid public speaking altogether. This could have an adverse effect on your career and intensify the fear. Get rid of perfection Stop pressuring yourself to deliver a perfect speech. After all, it is just a talk, not a matter of life and death. And if you stumble a bit, you’re not going to lose your job. Accept that mistakes will happen. When they do, try to regain your composure quickly and move past it. Chances are, no one will even notice. Know your material You will only feel really confident if you truly know your subject matter. Most likely, you are already an expert on the topic you are speaking about. So capitalise on the fact that you have valuable knowledge to share. If you are not familiar with the topic, do your research and prepare until you feel confident that you can handle any questions that might come up. Get excited about the subject. If the subject matter is boring, inject an anecdote or quotation or a human interest element. Practice. Practice. Practice. Nobody is a born pianist. One must learn how to play the piano and practise countless hours in order to do it gracefully and effortlessly at a recital. Likewise, good speakers aren’t born, they’re made. So the next time you give a talk, give yourself plenty of time to prepare, organise the material, practise delivering it and polish it before you face the audience. Remember, the more often you give a speech, the better you’ll get. Focus on your audience Instead of putting the focus on yourself and worrying about what other people think of you, turn the focus onto your audience. Smile, make eye contact. Encourage interaction by drawing them into your presentation and asking leading questions. Not only does this make you a more dynamic and engaging speaker, it also helps take the pressure and eyes off you. Picture success Stop visualising a disastrous performance. You’ll only make yourself more nervous, and your brain will automatically associate public speaking with negative emotions. Instead, replace these negative images with images of success. Picture yourself standing confidently in front of a crowd and delivering a great speech. Doing this will turn negative associations into positive ones and help to programme your brain and your body for success. Look and feel your best If you go into your talk feeling and looking good, it will help you feel more relaxed and confident when you face your audience. Try to get enough sleep the night before so you are as well rested as possible. Don’t eat too much right before your talk. Wear a favourite outfit, something flattering that you feel comfortable and confident in.
Ways to Communicate Effectively Ways to communicate effectively.According to Dale Carnegie, author of the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, 85 % of success on the job is due to one's ability to lead people and personality. Only 15 % of success is due to one's technical knowledge (18). Therefore, the ability to communicate with people is vital from engineering to business, and is essential in increasing your success tremendously. For this reason, having proper communication skills is not something you should leave to chance in your business career, as well as in your personal life. So following are seven ways/tips that will help you to succeed in communicating with others.1. Have self-worth.It's impossible to communicate effectively unless you feel valuable yourself. With self-worth you can move mountains. Without self-worth you'll be trudging between the valleys. If you don't feel good about yourself and about what you're doing, or if you don't have self-confidence, then how could one make someone else feel good and confident about themselves?.2. Get interested in other people. I know this 'way' may sound like a paradox but it's not. You would think that you have to be interested in other people in order to want to talk to them. However, most people when they speak are plainly interested in themselves and in what they have to say.The only reason to have a conversation should be to have some sort of exchange. Although we're not talking money all the time, there should be an exchange such as love, friendship, caring, companionship, etc. The main reason most people don't communicate effectively and don't get anything out of their conversations is that they overly- concentrate on the getting and not the giving.3. Open up a person's heart.This can be done in five ways. (1) Ask probing open-ended questions. What made you get into the field you're currently in? What do you like to do? What's on your mind? How was your week? How was your day? These are all questions you should ask. Don't just ask obvious questions, ask less obvious personal questions, that really will get them thinking and relating to you. The more, you open up their heart and yours, the more they'll want to be with you, help you, buy products from you, etc. Warning: Don't just ask questions. Interject some of your own comments, opinions and especially life experiences. If you don't interject some of your own comments, they will feel annoyed as they'll think you're interviewing them.(2) Compliment them. Tell them things like you look great. You do a great job; you're a great writer, composer, pianist, waiter, waitress, etc. (3) Remember a person's name and say it often. A person's name is one of the first words a baby hears. Therefore, a person's name is magic to his or her ears. (4) Smile. (5) Use humor.4. Listen at least two times more than you talk.You were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. You should be listening twice as much as long as you speak. Part of listening effectively means asking follow-up questions. Asking follow up questions shows the other person that you're listening effectively. For instance, if a person tells you they're in a band, you can ask them what instrument they play, where they play, how often they play, how they like it, etc. A lot of times, we are so much in our own heads, thinking about what to say next, when the next question is right in front of us ? if we only listen.5. Diversify yourself.Try doing different things such as sports, dancing, volunteer work, reading, etc. This will give you subjects to talk about with people as well as chances to meet people, sans reading, but you can join a reading group. Being diversified will overall make you more charming. Lastly, being diversified also gives you a form of status. People generally like people who are active, not someone who just sits on his couch all day.6. Understand that your worth never changes.If I had a million dollar check and I were to crumble it up, you would still want it. If I were to then put it on the floor put grease on it and proceed to step on it, you would still want it. My friend, you are worth much more than a million dollars. Whenever you go into a conversation, you are worth over a million dollars. When you step out of the conversation, out of the date, or out of the sale whether won or lost, you are still worth over a million dollars. Your internal worth never changes. Therefore, never be afraid to take risks, and work outside of your comfort zone as far as engaging in conversations is concerned. No matter what, your own internal $1 ,000 ,000+ worth never changes. Follow the step-ladder to success.You can read this article and theorize all day with friends about proper communications, but until you get up 'on bat' or initiate a conversation, you're not progressing. Think of a heavyweight boxer, before challenging the champ, he's got to beat the contenders. The contenders or low-rank fighters, give a boxer the experience and self-confidence he needs to face the champion. The same thing goes with communications, in order to talk to that top-level executive, or get that perfect date, you have to have the experience and self-confidence which comes from talking to your second choice of date, or low-level manager. Of course, if you don't try at all, you won't go anywhere either, so you must have the attitude of try, try, try, and not succumb to fear. ---.Word of warning, with this knowledge you must not tell people what to do. Doing this will ultimately alienate people from you. Instead, be humble with this knowledge, don't let people know you know it, but like Benjamin Franklin would, practice these virtues or ' ways' daily. The key word here is practice. You can theorize all day but until you practice these skills, you will not see any results or grow any bigger as a person. Like in school, you had textbook classes and laboratory classes. You better get out of the textbook and apply these ideas in the lab, in this case, in this laboratory called life.Carnegie, Dale. (1981). How to Win Friends and Influence People. United States. Simon and Schuster. .Pablo Golub is the author of the book It's All a Damn Game which can be purchased at http://www.7- Ways.com In it you will find out how to succeed in life, money, and happiness. Testimonial: this empowering book will teach, inspire and coach you to break the habits of self-doubt and low self-esteem, to realize a new vision to attain genuine contentment; Jami