How to not be nervous for a presentation

by Naba Ahmed·8 views·Updated Dec 1, 2022

Imagine: You're about to step on a stage or join a virtual meeting where you're going to present a topic to 10, 50, or 100 people. Does your heart start to beat faster, or breathing gets shorter? Do you feel your nerves taking over? That's a natural reaction many people get before speaking in front of an audience. In fact, 73% of the population experience public speaking anxiety or glossophobia. If you're one of those people who dread public speaking or you want to feel more confident when presenting, this video is for you! While you might want to avoid presenting at all costs, facing and overcoming the fear and stress associated with public speaking will make your life easier. Plus, you'll gain assurance in yourself and feel more confident when taking on other challenges. In this video, we're discussing 4 ways to calm your nerves before a presentation. By following these tips, we encourage you to work on reducing anxiety around public speaking from months to minutes before presenting. This video was created with Prezi Video, a virtual presentation tool that shows your content right alongside you as you present. Get started with: Prezi Video: https://prez.is/xr1zaux/ Prezi Present: https://prez.is/1roay29/ Prezi Design: https://prez.is/vt2hzh7/ Learn more tips, articles, tutorials, and training on how to use Prezi: https://prez.is/kz7a2zg/ Follow us on social media: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prezi/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/prezi Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prezicom Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prezicom/

Audio TranscriptAuto-generated

asked heartbeat, shortness of breath, sweaty hands,
Those are physical responses to stress and
anxiety and something you may experience right
before stepping onto a stage or turning
on your camera before you give a presentation
at some point.
Everyone has experienced nerves,
getting the best of them right before speaking in front of an audience,
you might feel overwhelmed by the crowd or
simply nervous about accidentally saying the wrong thing,
whatever it maybe you shouldn't have to compromise your presentation,
especially if it's for a job promotion, business deal or an academic course.
It's important to understand your stress and learn how to calm
your nerves before a presentation to feel and appear more confident.
That's why today I'm going to be sharing four highly effective ways.
You can reduce stress before your presentation.
It's best to follow all four tips to really feel
the difference before and during your time in the spotlight.
I'll kick us off with a tip that you can practice
months to weeks before a presentation and end with a tip,
that's most important, hours, two minutes before you start, before we jump in.
I want to remind you to subscribe to the present channel.
If you're interested in more presentation tips and tricks and if you'd
like to learn how present can help you improve your presentations.
So now let's get started with step number one,
understanding your stress.
The first step to overcoming any fear or anxiety is understanding where
it comes from or getting to the root of the problem.
If you experience a lot of stress right before public speaking.
Don't just brush it off as natural or normal.
It's common for stress to mask a greater issue or fear you might be facing
to get to the root of the problem?
Ask yourself what is the worst case scenario for you? Are you afraid?
You'll forget what to say and feel embarrassed or maybe
you're afraid people won't listen to you and you'll experience rejection
and then ask yourself,
why are you dreading these emotions so much when you're
doing a deep dive into your feelings about public speaking,
ask yourself, what are you really stressed about
by understanding the real reasons behind your stress?
You'll be able to rationalize it afterwards.
You'll have a much better chance of overcoming the issue,
whatever it may be because you recognized it also don't be afraid to ask for help
or guidance from others who have a similar
issue and then try to practically deal with it
now that you've come face to face with the real reason
why you get nervous before a presentation and you know,
or learning how to deal with it.
It's time to make sure you feel prepared.
Being underprepared is one of the most obvious reasons why you
feel nervous before presenting confidence comes from assurance in this case.
That's being sure that you know exactly what you have
to say and how you're going to say it.
There's a fascinating example of confidence that
will make you believe in yourself even more
so, here's a guy hanging off a cliff,
that's Alex Honnold,
you may notice that there is no safety gear on
him and that's because he's a free solo climber,
meaning that he practices climbing without any ropes or other type
of gear that would protect him if he slips out.
So in this practice
there's no room for imperfection or mistakes.
He climbed a 3000 ft rock formation without any safety year in july 2017,
how
he practiced climbing the El capitan rock up 50 times
with safety year before he free solo the rock formation
after reaching the top of the mountain. He confidently state in an interview
that there was no uncertainty in this climb because he knew exactly what to do
the whole way,
An exceptionally high level of preparation gave him the confidence
to attempt the free solo climb and ultimately complete it.
Even though this may seem like an extreme example, it's true in its essence,
practice makes perfect.
If you practice your presentation speech long enough that you're able to
recite it when woke it up in the middle of the night,
you'll feel 10 times more confident when presenting because
you'll know exactly what to say the whole way.
A great way to practice is by presenting
your presentation to your friends and family,
because there you'll also be able to collect some helpful feedback
and if you don't think of the time and energy to
practice your presentation speech as much as you like or you
simply want to have that safety here with you when presenting,
try out present your notes and present,
you can easily add them to each side.
As you can see in the example here when presenting,
you're the only one that sees them which helps
you deliver an impressive presentation with maximum confidence.
What also goes into preparation is the organization
of your presentation speech and the materials.
So to have an easier time memorizing your talking points,
plan out your presentation, you can do that by creating a mind map for yourself.
A mind map will help you organize your thoughts and ensure that
you memorize all the main focus areas to create a mind map.
Use present design,
simply select a template to create a mind map like that in the example right over here
next up you want to set up your space
and that means exactly where you're going to present.
So if you're presenting offline,
try out the stage and make sure you familiarize yourself with the environment.
If you're presenting online,
set up your background and check whether the lighting is right,
adapting and familiarizing yourself your space will make you feel more prepared
and confident during your presentation and last but definitely not least due.
A technical check in if you're using videos, audios,
visual aids or props in your presentation double or triple
check if everything works as you'd expect it to.
You don't want to worry about poor quality for your
audio or video material in the middle of your presentation.
So if you feel like you've done everything you can
you've practiced your presentation how to present your notes and
double check the quality of your visual aids but you're
still feeling a little nervous right before your presentation.
What you need is a practice that grounds
your thoughts and calms your nerves enter breathing.
You may ask how can a breathing exercise really helped calm me down?
We breathe all the time and still feel stressed.
Actually,
breathing exercises are much more than lengthy inhales
and exhales there about shifting your attention on
your body and allowing unnecessary thoughts to fade
away as you focus on your breath.
Deep breathing has so many benefits. It signals your nervous system to calm down.
It's proven to lower blood pressure and heart rate
and it can even improve your immune system.
So now let's go into an exercise.
So by doing your breathing exercise you can calm your nerves almost right away.
So here's an easy exercise. You can try 15 minutes before your next presentation.
It's called box breathing.
So what you want to do is inhale through
your nose while counting the four in your head.
Then hold your breath for another four and then exhale while
counting until four and then you're going to repeat the cycle.
So after you've gone through a few cycles you'll feel your
heartbeat slowing down in your nerves calming down as well.
And if you're interested in exploring other breathing exercises,
check out the link that I've attached in the description box below
you also are welcome to try out this exercise right now,
so feel free to pause the video to do.
So
next up focus
now that you're hopefully all relaxed,
you want to ensure that your nerves don't catch up
with you once you're on stage or in the meeting
stress usually comes from over thinking.
That's why it's essential to eliminate unnecessary
thoughts that distract you from your presentation.
It's easy to get stuck in a loop when
you're thinking about what others are thinking about you.
Instead focus on your presentation,
get excited about your topic and the insights you want to share with others.
If you focus on things that you can control,
like the quality of your presentation or your performance,
then you'll feel more confident and in control when you present.
But what do you do if something doesn't go as planned?
What if you mess up, just remember, it's fine,
you have to trust yourself and build your
confidence so that whenever situations thrown at you,
you'll be able to handle it with these.
Also take any failure as an opportunity to learn with this mindset,
you won't beat yourself up too much about mistakes,
you'll see everything as a practice to get better at what you're doing after all,
it's up to you to become the better presenter
Alright now that we've covered all four tips that will
help you to come down before your next presentation,
let us know which one you're trying out in the comments and if
it helps you feel more collected and confident before or during your presentation,
and if you enjoyed learning about these tips, feel free to leave a like,
also share this video with someone who you know is struggling with public speaking
or benefit from tips on how to not be nervous for your presentation.
This video was created with present video,
a virtual presentation tool that shows your
content right alongside you as you present.
If you're interested to try it out to try out present,
present or present video for your next presentation.
Check out the links in the description box below. I'm not
from Presents Marketing Team and I wish you success in your future presentations.
Have fun and I'll see you next time. Bye.