Get yourself ready to speak

1. Choose a small friendly audience to start with:
   When starting 0ut, most people find it easier to seek out speaking opportunities where the audience size isn’t too intimidating. Here's how to make your talk relevant to any audience.
2. Choose a topic you know about and feel strongly about:
   When you are learning to become a confident public speaker it makes sense to start by making things easy for yourself. Speaking about something that you are passionate about makes perfect sense.
3. Remember that perfection isn’t connection:
   Like all human beings, you will make the odd mistake, and your audience won’t think any the less of you for this. In fact, they will empathise with you and that builds a powerful connection.
4. Make time to practice your speech:
   Rehearsing your speech will reduce the chances of things going wrong, and therefore, reduce your anxiety.  I think it’s a bit like getting a “flu jab.” It's a form of inoculation that triggers a mild form of the “dis-ease” in order to reduce the chances of a full-blown attack. Here are some tips
5. Acknowledge your feelings and embrace your vulnerability:
   Denying your feelings doesn’t help. Most speakers, if they are honest, feel some degree of nervousness at the thought of making a speech or presentation. Strange as it may seem taking a few minutes to be with your emotions can transform them.
6. Question any negative self-talk:
   our fear of public speaking arises from your thinking. Does your “inner critic” undermine your willingness to speak in public? While it’s almost impossible to switch off these thoughts, you can challenge their validity. Here’s how...
7. What to do if you hate people looking at you:
   Scopophobia is is an irrational fear of being looked at and it can be a real problem for some people.  Here's one way to deal with it.
8. Reframe fear into excitement
   The physical symptoms that we associate with fear are due to adrenalin and are more or less the same as the ones we feel when we are very excited about something. Many people find that relabelling their fear as “excitement” or “anticipation” creates a much more resourceful mindset.
9. Visualise success
   I said earlier that our thinking is the cause of our public speaking anxiety. By recalling past public speaking failures, or imagining what could go wrong, often in great detail, you are torturing yourself unnecessarily. Instead, take the time to mentally rehearse success.
10. Focus on your existing public speaking strengths:
    Some people cannot help but focus on their shortcomings and failings. While you cannot simply switch this trait off overnight, you can retrain your thinking by setting yourself the challenge of listing your strengths too.
11. Remember that your audience wants you to do well
    Most good speakers have a positive expectation of themselves and their audience.  I call it inverse paranoia. Find out more about it here. Find out more about it here.
12. Release any tension in your body:
    Stress and anxiety cause tension in the body which can restrict your ability to speak and, in turn, trigger, even more, anxiety. This quick exercise is the perfect way to release tension before you start.
13. Take three deep breaths:
    Breathing is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to let go of stress and anxiety. Before you start to speak, take a few deep breaths and feel the tension leave your body. 
14. Pause and connect:
    Do you find that looking out at a sea of expectant faces makes you more nervous? Relax, you are not alone. Even professional speakers get this feeling when speaking to an unfamiliar audience. Do what they do – pause and connect before you start to speak.