How can you train your social skills to manage speech anxiety?

2 Practice your speech

Another way to reduce speech anxiety is to practice your speech as much as possible. Practicing will help you improve your content, delivery, and timing. It will also help you identify and correct any mistakes, weaknesses, or gaps in your speech. The more you practice, the more familiar and comfortable you will become with your speech. You can practice by yourself, in front of a mirror, or with a friend or a coach. You can also record yourself and watch or listen to your performance. Practicing will help you polish your speech and boost your self-esteem.

3 Focus on your message

A common mistake that speakers make is to focus too much on themselves and their anxiety, rather than on their message and their audience. This can make them more self-conscious, nervous, and distracted. To avoid this, you need to focus on your message and why it matters to you and your audience. Think about the main purpose, goal, and value of your speech. What do you want to inform, persuade, or inspire your audience to do or think? How can you make your message clear, relevant, and engaging? Focusing on your message will help you concentrate on delivering it effectively and forget about your anxiety.

4 Use positive self-talk

Your thoughts and beliefs can have a powerful impact on your emotions and behaviors. If you constantly think negatively about yourself and your speech, you will feel more anxious and perform worse. If you think positively, you will feel more confident and perform better. Therefore, you need to use positive self-talk to overcome your speech anxiety. Positive self-talk is the practice of replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. For example, instead of thinking "I'm going to fail", think "I'm going to do well". Instead of thinking "They will hate me", think "They will like me". Positive self-talk will help you calm your nerves and boost your morale.

5 Relax your body

Speech anxiety can also affect your physical state, causing symptoms such as sweating, trembling, blushing, or dry mouth. These symptoms can make you feel more uncomfortable and embarrassed, which can worsen your anxiety. To prevent this, you need to relax your body before and during your speech. You can do this by using some relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, muscle relaxation, or visualization. These techniques will help you lower your heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension, and increase your oxygen and blood flow. Relaxing your body will help you cope with your anxiety and improve your performance.

6 Seek feedback

The last tip to train your social skills to manage speech anxiety is to seek feedback from others. Feedback is essential for learning and improvement. It can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, and how you can improve them. It can also help you gain a more realistic and positive perspective on your speech and yourself. You can seek feedback from different sources, such as your audience, your peers, your mentors, or your coaches. You can ask them specific questions, such as what they liked, what they learned, what they suggest, or how they felt. Seeking feedback will help you grow as a speaker and reduce your anxiety.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?