OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING TOGETHER

The fear of speaking in public is one of the most common fears in today’s society. The Stirling Public Speaking Society is aiming to arm their members with skills to overcome this fear and to replace it with self-confidence.

Speak loud and clear. Take your time and don’t rush through your points. Don’t read everything from your notes. Involve the audience and be aware of your body language. Probably many of us have heard or read these recommendations before. The only problem with them: they sound a whole lot easier than they actually are.
Up on stage, when great nervousness and anxiety rushes through our bodies, it becomes more and more difficult to keep calm and follow the plan. This is where the Stirling Public Speaking Society (SPSS) comes into play. Every Monday Calum Murdoch (President of the Society) and his fellow committee colleagues come up with all kinds of different exercises.

Calum Murdoch and the SPSS committee

From little warm-up games or icebreakers, over improvisations, up to prepared speeches: a great variety within the programs makes each session unique and productive. Apart from that, social events as well as guest speeches have been announced for the upcoming weeks.

Even though public speaking may be very uncomfortable for many participants, the society succeeds to create an atmosphere for everyone to be able to give it a go. In a safe and supportive environment, members of the society are able to truly challenge themselves, face their fear of public speaking and broaden their comfort zone. With well-established feedback routines, participants that come on stage can get direct and constructive feedback as well as useful hints how to improve specific aspects.

Within the society a strong community bond has already been established within the first few weeks. Especially through the society’s approach of making progress together and of overcoming the fear of public speaking together fosters the team spirit remarkably.

Through the official Facebook page of the society, members and interested students can follow the society and be kept updated for upcoming events.

And maybe with a lot of practice and continuous support, one day the participants will perform speeches as self-confident as Leonardo DiCaprio in the Wolf of Wall Street (even though we are not quite sure if this really is the aim of the society).