{"id":27399,"date":"2011-05-10T18:52:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T23:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=27399"},"modified":"2020-11-12T18:56:02","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T00:56:02","slug":"im-scared-to-make-a-public-presentation-what-do-i-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/im-scared-to-make-a-public-presentation-what-do-i-do\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m scared to make a public presentation. What do I do?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>I need an advice: My group is going to present a project in school. She&#8217;s going to choose a student randomly so only one of us will present it. The problem is: I&#8217;m afraid to speak in public because my hands shake and I forget some things. I get afraid of what people will think, and I lose control. And I can&#8217;t distract myself during the presentation as I do with anger! What can I do?<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>What you describe is very common when a person first learns to give a presentation. As hard as it is to do, it is worth learning because you will need to do similar things throughout your life. You will be making presentations to customers or to your boss. You might be asked to teach a class or you might want to argue a position before the city council.<\/p>\n<p>What drives fear more than anything is the unknown. Since you don&#8217;t often give talks in public, you don&#8217;t know exactly what to expect, so your imagination fills in the gaps. Unfortunately, what you imagine is rarely like reality. People tend to make things out to be worse than it really is.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that helps is to pick a person near the back of the room to talk to. Pick someone who appears to be paying attention and is sympathetic to your views &#8212; perhaps a fellow team member. By picking someone near the back, you will automatically speak loud enough for most people to hear you.<\/p>\n<p>Another thing that helps is to realize that silence is your friend. Far too many people make the mistake of thinking they need to fill in every moment of time with some sort of sound. So they start using repetitive sounds or words to fill time while they are thinking about what to say next. But the audience also needs some silence to think about what you last said.<\/p>\n<p>A final suggestion is not to do anything repetitively, such as jingling coins in your pocket or pacing back and forth. People focus on things that repeat, so it takes their minds off of what you are saying.<\/p>\n<p>While you are nervous about speaking, realize that your fellow students are just as nervous, though some hide it better than others. A class is a good place to practice because you have a sympathetic audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: I need an advice: My group is going to present a project in school. She&#8217;s going to choose a student randomly so only one of us will present it. The problem is: I&#8217;m afraid to speak in public because my hands shake and I forget some things. I get afraid of what people will&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[352,451],"class_list":["post-27399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-fear","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":27847,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/im-afraid-im-going-to-fail\/","url_meta":{"origin":27399,"position":0},"title":"I&#8217;m afraid I&#8217;m going to fail","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My question is how do you be obedient? It's like I want to do the right thing and I'm aware of what I'm doing wrong and have done wrong in the past, but I'm scared that I'm going to fail in doing the right thing in the future. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48855,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/im-afraid-of-being-in-a-relationship\/","url_meta":{"origin":27399,"position":1},"title":"I&#8217;m afraid of being in a relationship","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 25, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day sir, I appreciate all you do to help people. Most importantly you do this only to please God and not man. I am in my 30s and I know I should be married by now. A major factor for being unmarried yet is nuclear family financial responsibilities.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21407,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/fear\/","url_meta":{"origin":27399,"position":2},"title":"Fear","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: II Kings 6:8-23 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The prevalence of fear \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Watch a horror movie \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The scenes start out idyllic. But in the background there are hints that something isn\u2019t quite right. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a02.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The music builds with intensity. You know something is about to happen, but not what or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Audio&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60258,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-fearfulness-of-saul\/","url_meta":{"origin":27399,"position":3},"title":"The Fearfulness of Saul","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 10, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Matthew W. Bassford Saul is one of the great tragic figures of the Old Testament and indeed of the Bible. Because of the connections between his story and the story of David, we know more about him than about any other spiritual failure. It is truly telling that his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/fear-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":29463,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-i-improve-in-giving-presentations\/","url_meta":{"origin":27399,"position":4},"title":"How can I improve in giving presentations?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am a trainer. I will be giving a presentation soon, but I am not confident. I am tense and get scared thinking about it. How can I improve? Answer: Fears exist because of unknown things. You aren't certain about your abilities or the audience's reception, so you imagine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5250,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-i-overcome-the-fear-of-death\/","url_meta":{"origin":27399,"position":5},"title":"How can I overcome the fear of death?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 1, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi Mr. Hamilton, Is there a way to become unafraid of death? I have been terrified of dying since I was very young and sometimes it consumes my thoughts. I fear the concept of being put in a box in the ground unable to move, think, feel or talk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}