18 Reasons Why People Are Afraid
Of Public Speaking
Matt KramerOvercoming Fear, Public Speaking
I know intimately the gut-wrenching,
free-falling feeling of glossophobia (fear of public speaking) and I know many
more who have dealt or currently deal with it now. Two words: it sucks!
One of the most important things you can do
when it comes to problem solving, is to IDENTIFY the problem.
Many of the reasons we humans fear public
speaking are universal and well-known; many others haven’t even been
defined. I decided to compile a list of the most common fears people have of
public speaking in order to help bring them out into the open.
Some are in a league of their own but you’ll
also notice that several of the fears listed below are mixtures of one or more
of the others.
See if you can relate to any of them. Let's
get started:
1. Being
judged
People form opinions of just about everyone
they come into contact with. You do it, I do it. Accept the fact that you’re
going to be judged. Make your case and hopefully they’ll judge you accurately based
on your message.
2. Coming
off as a dummy (lacking intelligence)
This one is pretty straightforward. There may
be plenty of others who think they know everything much
better than you do, and perhaps they’ll think you’re not worthy enough to speak
to them. Well, hey, the world is full of them. The word “hater” didn’t appear
by chance.
Well hi there!
3. Being
“found out” - Imposter syndrome
People have strange thoughts about someone
“finding them out”, or finding out they’re a fraud! The thought behind it is
the speaker feels as if they aren’t an “expert” in their field, but rather an imposter. Purely related
to self-confidence and it’s much more common than you might think.
4. Making a
foolish mistake
Not wanting to make a silly mistake on stage
while a group of people have their eyes on you. A mistake could be mispronouncing a word,
forgetting to say a word you had prepared to say, or just about anything you
consider a mistake.
When the sign says
"Don't feed the bears!" man you better not feed the bears.
5. Abuse by
your internal critic
Another way this could be said is being afraid
of YOURSELF. Does it really seem strange, though? Think about it. Who knows our
insecurities better than us? Nobody. Our internal critic knows exactly what to say in order to make us feel like
crap. It’s understandable that you’d want to avoid this abuse.
6. Being
criticized right then and there by someone in the audience
It’s one thing to be criticized on the
interwebz by an anonymous troll. It’s another to be chastised in the flesh by
a hostile troll. Being put on the spot by another person while
there’s an entire audience looking on would be a hell of a lot of pressure.
Even if you have the knowledge to back-up your points, the pressure can fluster
even the most intelligent person. Again, another understandable fear.
7. Heckled
by social media
Let me be the first to say, I do not wish to
become an infamous meme or a funny video. Okay, I guess it would be kinda cool.
Like this one:
8. Speaking
in front of professional peers
Talk about pressure! Basically, you’re
speaking to people who all do the exact same thing that you do. They could
be audience members or even when speaking on a panel with other
industry peers. Whatever the case, who’d be more qualified to judge you than them?
And that’s the reason for this fear. It’s a combination of being judged and
being “found out.” I hear this one A LOT.
9. Forgetting
what to say
This ranks high on the scale of terror. I’ve
experienced it and I’ll be the first to tell you: not fun! When you analyze
this fear, you’ll see that it’s a mix of making a mistake, looking stupid, and
being judged (possibly others). The worse part about this one is that the
physical effects of fear actually contribute to forgetfulness. Crappy…
10. Freezing
(deer in a headlight)
Imagine completely seizing up and not being
able to think or speak. You sweatin’ yet? Forgetting what to say shares its
roots with this one because of the physical effects that fear has on us (fight or flight). Equally terrifying.
11. The fear
of being recorded
This is basically fear squared. The fear of
being recorded is the same as the fear of public speaking. The reasons are
essentially the same. The main difference would be that being recorded means
your “mistakes” could quite possibly go viral like the dolphin man video from
#7.
12. Your
points being disputed
Makes sense. Nobody wants to be called out as
“Fake News.” In most cases, it acts as a personal attack (at least that’s what
our ego thinks) if someone calls out your arguments or
conclusions. It also requires you to do more work, either to defend your points
or have to entirely re-think and re-work them. Not necessarily a bad thing, but
who wants more work? Sheesh.
Let me examine that BS really quick...
13. Not being
able to please everyone
I don’t think we’re hardwired to want people
to not like us. It works from a marketing standpoint I
suppose. The saying “love ‘em or hate ‘em” is a good example. Take any person
who has escaped the lobster tank of mediocrity and you’ll find a hardcore group
of people that admire them, and another group, perhaps even more rowdy, that
despises them. How can you defend against this? Stay home. Only problem with
that is you’ll never be able to overcome the fear of public speaking.
Tell me more Bob...
14. Thinking
no one will believe you or think you’re credible
A combination of imposter syndrome and
speaking in front of professional peers, oh, and topped with a cherry of self-doubt. It’s easy to imagine exaggerated scenarios like this. Perhaps
they’ll think you’re too young and that will make them write you off before you
even begin. Too old to speak to a bunch of whippersnappers? Lack of
experience? And many, many more.
15. Fear of
dying
Hey, may sound over the top, but I’m sure
you’ve heard the stat about people fearing public speaking over death
(preposterous stat but illustrates that public speaking is a
rampant fear). The fear of getting so nervous that your
heart gives out and you die. Right there on the floor. I suppose it’s possible.
16. Being
physically attacked by someone in the audience
Similar to the last one although not quite
as unlikely if you consider the current political climate. It
would go something like this, you say something jokingly that offends someone,
next thing you know you’re waking up in the hospital from an errant shoe.
17. Saying
something politically incorrect
Going back to the last one, I suppose the
thought of being retaliated against physically makes sense. But for this, I
think the mere thought of ridicule or outrage caused by an “offensive” slip of
the tongue is plenty reason to get overtaken by fear. Imagine something
you say gets misinterpreted (or correctly interpreted) as “racist."
Reputations have been toppled for less, so this is certainly an understandable
fear. Mind your tongue, pal!
What did you SAYYYYY?
18. Not
knowing the answer to a question
You’ve prepared thoroughly and have even
delivered your speech pretty dang well, but now comes the Q&A portion. You
take the first question and you don’t know the answer. Uh-oh. The audience
members are scratching their heads and now they begin to question the entire
content of your speech.
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