we actually do pick up the courage to stand up and speak, we panic, our hands start to sweat, our stomachs become upset, our knees buckle and our voice seems to belong to someone else or not exist at all! The words, if they come out, have no resemblance to the thoughts we wanted to get across to the audience. What are we doing?
We are reinforcing our negative belief in our ability to stand up and speak in front of a group. “I am no good at public speaking!” Once again we succeed in reinforcing the negative self-image we have on the file in our belief system. We complete the circle of our own self-fulfilling prophecy.
A negative self-image about public speaking might be an indication of a host of other negative attitudes and self-images filed in your belief system. If your negative attitudes and negative images overpower your positive attitudes and positive images (your true self), you likely will have a low self-esteem.
The measure or degree to which you like yourself is your self-esteem. A low self-esteem may prevent you from reaching the level of success you desire, because success is not consistent with your belief system.
Charles Simmons once said: “Our attitudes control our lives; attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.”
So you might well ask, if we have programmed our belief system ever since we were born, can we reprogram it so that our belief system provides positive feedback to our conscious mind instead of negative feedback? Can we reprogram positive attitude changes towards any activity or behaviour we would like to learn and thus change our self-esteem from negative to positive, thereby creating more success in our daily life?” The answer is yes!
Even though we have created a negative balance in our belief system about one or more of our talents, abilities or behaviours, we should realize that many of these negative thoughts are not based on truth. This negative balance is based on negative impressions we have received over the years from comments by other people and by “self-talk”. We have created a ‘false self’.
An interesting series of studies were conducted by Yale University to examine the types of messages being sent out to adolescents by the average North American family. In a large sample testing, over a seven-day period, the messages were 32 positive, and over 431 negative. So much for the comments you receive from other people. Are you going to build the rest of your life on those negative comments? I hope not.
And what of “self-talk”? We talk to ourselves all the time. Very often it goes something like this: “I am so stupid! How could I do something so silly! I am so disorganized!” and on and on it goes. If I were to talk to my friends the way some people talk to themselves, I would not have any friends left! Are you going to build the rest of your life on those negative comments? I hope not.
The subconscious mind can be influenced, not by willpower as some people maintain, but by supplanting, replacing and simply overriding the false impressions in our belief system with positive beliefs about ourselves. This will allow our ‘true self’ to surface.
Before we discuss the ways we can change our belief system, we must understand and remember that our subconscious mind constantly records, files and feeds back information. Remember it is the hard disk, not the operating system. It does not judge or make decisions. It also does not understand the difference between real and imagined and it memorizes best when processing emotionally-charged information, repeatedly, over an extended period of time.
MENTAL RE-PROGRAMMING - Positive Mental Attitude
To help you in your quest to overcome your fear of speaking in public in particular and to achieve more success in your life in general, I have included the following from a book called “ACHIEVE”. The author is Denis L. Cauvier, a professional speaker and seminar leader who at one time vowed never to try public speaking again. He writes:
“I had to re-program my subconscious mind to be comfortable with myself while speaking in front of an audience, and to actually enjoy the process. How I did this was by using a tool called Positive Affirmation Statements which, in reality, is nothing more than giving yourself a pep talk. We all talk to ourselves and give ourselves guidance as to how well we expect to perform in a given activity.
I decided to change the language of my self-talk to something more positive. Instead of repeating to myself on a subconscious level, “I am a lousy public speaker”, I changed my self-talk to “I am a great public speaker now.” By saying this over and over, I was actually able to recondition or program my subconscious mind to become comfortable with the idea of being a good speaker.
I also linked positive emotions to public speaking. When you discuss public speaking with the average person, they immediately link up all sorts of personal pain associated with the concept.
The pain of embarrassment, failure, disappointment, and maybe even ridicule come to mind. It’s this pain that prevents them from moving forward and conquering the fear of public speaking.
In my case, I decided to think of something that provided me with total pleasure: downhill skiing. I love skiing so much that just saying downhill skiing triggers a series of positive emotions within me. I took out my favourite skiing poster, hung it in my office, and then said to myself: “Public speaking - I love it” then stared at the poster; Public speaking - I love it” then stared at the poster again.
As soon as I would say “public speaking”, a little bit of negative emotion would creep in; then I would stare at the picture of the skier and, because a picture is stronger than words, all the positive emotions associated with skiing transferred into my self-concept associated with public speaking. I was finding it very difficult to feel fearful and nervous about public speaking while I was associating it with the pleasure of skiing.
I continued to repeat the exercise. Two days later, I was walking down the street and I said to myself: “ public speaking”, and my mind automatically kicked in the picture of the skier; I was now beginning to associate public speaking with all the positive feelings associated with skiing.
I was conditioning my mind to link pleasure, not pain, with public speaking... and was ultimately very successful. It’s the combination of the physical - writing a good speech; emotional - linking constant pleasure to public speaking (or whatever activity or behaviour you’re working on); and mental re-programming the subconscious mind, which will result in conquering fears.”
MENTAL REPROGRAMMING - Visualization
Another way mentally to prepare yourself for public speaking is to visualize yourself successfully delivering your speech. People in sports use positive imaging or visualization all the time. They imagine vividly how if feels to see the golf ball plop in the hole, they hear the sound in their mind, they hear the roar of approval of the crowd, they taste the sweat of concentration in their mouth.
You can do the same. Imagine yourself behind the lectern, imagine people in the audience smiling at you, imagine you hear them laughing at your jokes, imagine the audience giving you a standing ovation at the end of your speech.
Exaggerate and emotionalize your expectations, live the action in your mind....do this for at least 30 seconds, many times a day for an extended period of time, and you’ll be surprised at the positive results your positive imagination can bring to you. Why does this work? Visualization
