Primarily stage fright is caused by lack of confidence, being unprepared for your speech or other stage performance and fearing that you would gain the antagonism of the audience.
For a clearer understanding of what your body goes through during stage fright let us look at stage fright as a psychological reaction. When your body is presented with stimulus it's reaction is either excitement or fear. This act triggers the secretion of a bodily hormone known as the adrenaline. The function of the adrenaline is to provide energy to the body in order to give a flight or fight response to the stimulus. When this hormone gets into the blood stream it produces Side effects like, stomach ache, shortness of breath, due to the constriction of the throat, shaking, vomiting, shaking hands, trembling etc
To learn more on stage fright and the stages of stage fright, do not fail to visit my first post on stage fright. Now let's focus on how to overcome stage fright even to the extent of averting them to your strength.
HOW TO OVERCOME STAGE FRIGHT
We are going to look at 5 basic ways of overcoming stage fright:
1. RELAXATION , a relaxed mind ease tension, so relaxation is a good way to overcome stage anxiety. Learn some techniques like hypnosis and biofeedback.
2. EXERCISE, do your normal exercise before going to the venue you would perform. Rub hands to pass on nervousness
3. BREATHING, exhale then inhale slowly at least for 25 times before you climb your stage. This will reduce fast heart beats, a symptom of stage fright.
4. PRACTICE, practice they say makes perfect, so make a goal to rehearse many times before going to the stage. Call friends who are good at what you will do on the stage i.e either speech or acting etc, ask for their observations and corrections, remember it is better to fail a million times during rehearsal than once when you're actually performing on the stage before your audience.
5. DIET, avoid drinking coffee ,tea or any carbornated beverage to avoid burping while on the stage, that can be embarrassing and causes many to loose focus while on stage.
Drink water before the performance and take sips of water to prevent drying of the mouth.
NOTE: Don't drink too much much water within the first 30 seconds before your performance to avoid wash room.
Now that you have known how to overcome stage fright, let's now look at how to be a good motivational speaker, an impressive one.
SKILLS FOR MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH
1. Try to understand the make up of your audience, are you going to address a group of young adults, children, or older people that will definitely guide your use of words and body language. Always have your audience in mind when preparing for speech.
2. The first 90 seconds of your speech can be very crucial, it is this time that you either gain the attention of your audience or loose it.
So start with a quote, phrase or example your listeners can testify to. Be very enthusiastic about what your saying, remember while on the stage you are the teacher of everyone in the audience so never feel timid. Speak with boldness, be the master of your stage, but please avoid over enthusiasm that can make your speech look so mechanical, so flexibility is the key word here!
3. Get your audience connected with positive impression. Do not destroy the sentiments of your listeners, see tactful ways to drive home your point but without reducing their excitements about your topic.
4. Use body language effectively. Researchers say that 93% of lasting impression is more directly tired to our voice and body language.
So it doesn't matter necessarily what you say but how you say it matters most. Pausing shortly at intervals is often a good way to make points sink down into the minds of your listeners, remember the orator of Umuofia in Chinue Achebe's things fall apart, he often pauses while speaking to allow his community show their deep feelings.So little silence can convey ideas you may not be able to.
5. Maintain good eye contact and body posture, your eyes plays very important role in communication, eyes can be used to convey the speakers feeling about his topic. Though many suggest looking above the heads of your audience as a way of calming stage anxiety, it is more effective when you look at your audience as individuals not even as a group, so the former is wrong, a pitfall you should always avoid.
Make good use of your hands, body gestures to express your point. I can personally relate to the former president of the United States of America Barak Obama as being very effective in this , you can download any of his speech to see for yourself.
6. Never derail from your main point, a good speech is like a pencil, it must have a point. You can use good vocabularies, photographs, fliers etc to make your main points stand out.
When your done speaking it's good you give a memorable conclusion, remember that what is said last is remembered first, so your last words might be what your audience remembers years after you have spoken to them. Dike Chukwumerije a Nigerian spoken words poet is a very good public speaker I will also advise you try searching for one of his speeches online.
DONT'S FOR EFFECTIVE PUBLIC SPEAKING
1. Don't look down or off where there are no people
2. Don't speak unless you have reached the front of the stage
3. Don't play with your hair or sway from side to side
4. Don't point with the finger instead use open palm
5. Don't fold your arms, and never turn your back to your audience.
I strongly believe that in applying all this , your next speech will be with loads of CONFIDENCE.
References: Skillopedia, Google, personal observations and books.
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