Last Updated on 2023-02-14 , 4:23 pm
I remember that once upon a time, when I was in a course for public speaking, the instructor said this: “The audience can’t see that you’re nervous nor can they hear that you’re nervous. The only way for them to know that you’re nervous is to smell you—because you’re full of sweats. In other words, unless they’re standing beside you, only you know that you’re nervous.”
That’s like the holy grail of advice to hiding your nervousness: no one knows, so don’t be so bothered over your nervousness. Before I get bashed, here’s a disclaimer: people who have gone through professional public speaking would know if one is nervous by observation, but most of these people have been through that stage so they’ll not care much.
In fact, read on and you’ll realize why this doesn’t matter anyway.
So, back to the topic: how do you hide your nervousness? The very first thing you have to know is this: you’ll realize that the advice is on how to hide nervousness, and not how to eliminate it.
Here’s the fact: no matter how seasoned you are, be it in public speaking or confessing your love for someone, it’s impossible to eliminate nervousness. Public speakers who speak daily will still get nervous when they go up on stage—their nervousness isn’t eliminated. It’s hidden.
This means that the best way to “eliminate nervousness” is to hide it; not kill it. Remember earlier, I wrote that people who have gone through professional training wouldn’t care if you’re nervous? Here’s the thing: they know it’s normal.
Just go down to any Toastmaster meeting (a club for individuals to train their public speaking) and experience it yourself, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Now, how do you hide your nervousness?
The very first step is to be prepared. When you’re prepared, you’ve one less thing to worry—whatever you want to say or do is already so ingrained in you that it becomes a habit. In the book The Power of Habit, the writer mentions, with scientific studies, that when something becomes a habit, you require much less effort. Less effort means less stress, and less stress means less nervousness. This works extremely well for driving tests: if you’re so prepared, you’ll only focus on relaxing instead of ensuring that you’ve done the correct things.
If it’s not possible to memorize the entire speech (or your entire confession to a girl), at least memorize the first five minutes. Within the first one to five minutes, your body will usually automatically revert to a less nervous state, because let’s face it: how long can your heart beat so quickly?
This isn’t mind over body: it’s simple biology.
The second step is to remember this: your content is what everyone is focused on. Whether you’re making a presentation, confessing your feelings or even in a job interview, what matters most is your content. I mean, do girls reject guys who are nervous during their confessions? No? In other words, don’t over-estimate yourself—in public speaking, everyone forgets your face after one hour. Going into a nervous situation with this mindset (and FYI, it’s true after all) will make you to feel slightly better, because you’ve got nothing to lose.
Thirdly, go slow. When you try to rush through everything so that it will be over soon, you’ll not only have lots of filler words like “erm”, “you know” or “so”, you’ll also tend to make some mistakes. And mistakes will evidently make you even more nervous. You won’t want to add oil to fire.
The final tip is something that I really believe in and feel is extremely useful: don’t allow yourself to wait for the nervous situation to occur. Let it come to you in a sudden—for example, I used to make a lot of presentations, and prior to the presentations, I would make small talks with people around me. All of a sudden, someone will say that it’s time to speak, and I won’t have the time to build up my nervousness—one second I’m talking about how cute cats are with a friend, and the next second, I’m in front of hundreds of people.
The lack of time for my mind to build up the nervousness has always worked for me. Okay, granted that it won’t work for certain situations like a job interview, whereby you might have to wait alone in a room for the interviewer, but it works wonders for most other situations.
Let yourself talk about cats and suddenly confess your feelings to a girl—trust me, while it seems weird, you’ll at least be more relaxed. Talk to someone beside you when you’re waiting for your driving test—when your name is called, you’ll be driving so soon that you didn’t even remember to be nervous.
And of course, like what every public speaking coach will say, do more of it (whether it’s public speaking or interviews or meeting new people) and you’ll feel less nervous.
Just remember this: it’s normal to be nervous. Just don’t tell others you are.
Featured Image: fizkes / Shutterstock.com
Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:
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