PERSONAL COMMUNICATION CLASSES
Do you get nervous at the mere thought of being asked to give a speech or presentation?
Are you afraid of blanking out?
Have you had a bad experience and feel like you can't overcome it?
Learn how to speak in public
Techniques to Overcome Stage Fright
Except in exceptional cases, the anxiety caused by public speaking is often related to those three questions above, but there are more thoughts that hijack our belief that we can succeed: ‘my boss will be at the presentation’, ‘I stress out when everyone looks right at me’ or ‘I’m going to make a fool of myself’, among others. These fears have more to do with the projections we make of that moment than with the act of public speaking itself. These projections trigger a pattern of physiological, cognitive, and motor reactions that block our ability to communicate.
Communication training allows us to detect the errors we make and confront our fears, change the negative projections that torment us, face communication situations with more confidence, and learn to write and deliver speeches for different purposes.
"Learning only occurs after detecting errors and being an active and conscious part of the process of change."
Public speaking is an advanced social skill as it involves all dimensions of social abilities: cognitive, motor, psychophysiological, and situational. Using all these skills at once in front of an audience – not necessarily large – can provoke fear, causing people to avoid such experiences.
Public speaking can be interpreted as a social communicative act, whereby a speaker delivers a discourse through verbal and nonverbal channels to a group of listeners.
An interpersonal interaction is established between the speaker and the audience. For any social interaction, communication requires one or several of the following components: linguistic and paralinguistic skills, persuasive speech, argumentation skills, courtesy, adaptable nonverbal communication, control of nonverbal language, and management of speech pace and stage space.
A large number of individuals avoid public speaking due to personal stress.
However, a significant number of individuals choose to work on improving their personal communication skills..
Mode and Content
When speaking in front of an audience, our message is transmitted primarily by verbal communication, but the impact of what we say will be influenced more by nonverbal communication.
When we prepare a speech, a presentation, or a talk for work, we often focus on the content: ‘WHAT am I going to say?,’ but we rarely consider the form: ‘HOW am I going to say it?.’ We don’t think in advance about our tone, speaking rate, posture, or movement. In other words, we overlook the part that helps us most when facing an audience: connecting with them at all costs.
Since human communication is an emotional act and that our expressions are the means by which emotions, feelings, or intentions are conveyed, unconscious nonverbal communication can either illustrate or enhance our message, but it can also muddy, conceal, or distort it.
Verbal and nonverbal language must align in our presentation, and if they don’t, the audience senses the ambiguity. Faced with such an ambiguity, the audience prioritizes nonverbal information. For this reason, working on form is crucial. It is also necessary to:
- a) achieve a speech structure that focuses on the emotional logic of the audience
- b) empathize with the audience and enjoy communicating
- c) adapt to the live situation: make conscious decisions and manage conflicts?
Online or in-person communication classes
Online or in-person communication classes are geared towards achieving a specific goal and require commitment, dedication, and personal effort.
Whether you want to start teaching or improve your communication skills, you can do so online or in-person.
If you need communication classes for teams and companies, you can contact here.
Becoming aware
Becoming aware of your communication is the first step to overcoming fear. Awareness prepares the mental groundwork for the next steps to unfold.
Becoming aware will foster the development of your personal observation skills and of the limiting aspects of your habitual way of thinking and acting. If you are not aware of how you think and where your limitations come from, you will have little to change.
The goal is to replace the habitual and limiting ways of thinking shaped by fear with a disciplined mental attitude shaped by training, which will provide more effective performance in communication.
The main task is simply to become aware of the limiting thoughts that exist. You will identify the multiple ways in which you unconsciously waste concentration and personal power, as well as borrowed beliefs about public speaking.
Bad habits protect themselves by staying hidden in the subconscious. When we uncover them, we begin to feel foolish for allowing them to exist. Once we are aware, the power of imitating forms fades away. That is the moment to focus on the action plan.
