- Does your stomach do flip-flops at the mere thought of public speaking?



- When presenting your ideas to a group of people, do you become so stressed that you want to hand in your resignation?

If you answered "yes" to either of these questions, you're not alone.

According to the book of lists, the fear of public speaking is the number one fear of all fears, outranking the fear of death, which comes in at number seven. Additionally, recent surveys show that over 41% of the population has some anxiety when asked to speak in front of a group, no matter how small it may be.

Obviously, public speaking is a common source of stress for many people. Those who have difficulty staying cool under this high-pressure experience report all kinds of symptoms, from sweaty palms and an accelerated heart rate to memory loss and even difficulty breathing.

While the majority of people would like to avoid public speaking entirely, this is simply an unrealistic wish. Whether you work alone or within a large organization, you will eventually need to speak in public to get certain tasks accomplished and ideas across. Additionally, if you want to be a leader or achieve something meaningful in your professional career, you will often need to give presentations to supervisors, other departments and customers to be successful.

No matter what your experience is with public speaking, the good news is that it does not need to be a stressful situation. In fact, by keeping just a few key principles in mind, you can keep your confidence up while giving presentations better persuade others to see your point of view, and make public speaking an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

Organize Your Thoughts

1. One of the biggest mistakes people make when presenting their ideas to a group is not organizing their thoughts logically. When speaking, too many people jump from topic to topic in a random order. Not only does this make it difficult for their listeners to follow, but it also keeps the speakers from getting their points across effectively. To make sure you keep your presentation on track, make an outline of the key points you want to address. Whether your outline contains full sentences or just bullet points is entirely up to you. The objective is simply to organize your thoughts in order to present your message logically.

2. Another key to organizing your message is to keep your thinking in a diamond shape so it starts off with a point, expands to the bulk of the matter, and then comes down to a close. Make your initial point something strong and startling to gin people's attention. For example, a powerful statement of the main point, a statistic, or an analogy is an excellent choice. In contrast, when you start with something weak like "Today I'd like to talk about the pros and cons of:", you're not going to get anyone to stop thinking about the E-mail, voice mail and hundreds of other things they need to attend to. Effective speakers grab their listeners' attention from the very beginning.

3. Next, expand your main point with your examples, arguments, and justifications. Be thorough so you can effectively persuade your listeners to your point of view. Finally, narrow your message down to a concise close where you actually ask people to do something. Many times people make their point very well, but in the end they don't call people to action. Say something like, "If we want this result, we must do the following:" By asking people to do what you want, you're giving closure to your message and guiding people to your course of action.