How To Ease Public Speaking Jitters

Day-of presentation nerves are quite fascinating given the human capacity to conjure words effortlessly for the 1,425 other minutes that we spend not giving a 15-minute presentation. Before you pounce on me for including sleep time, a reminder that there are those of us who occasionally (and hilariously) talk in our sleep. It happens. So do nerves.

As a sociology professor, I can’t even count how many presentations I have in any given year. There are my twice-weekly lectures to a new crop of students every quarter. Talks on my research at conferences, universities, and organizations. Proposal summaries for grant reviews. And the list goes on.

For better or worse, public speaking is an inevitable part of my job. So are the dreaded nerves that suddenly come along when I have to stand in front of a group of people and make words come out of my mouth.

There’s a myth, however, that you have to enjoy public speaking to be a good presenter or at least look comfortable giving a talk. I think a good portion of the terror that strikes would-be presenters comes from unhelpful ideas that many of us learn about the essence of talks.

Thankfully, I’ve found that these two tips help quell my nerves wherever I am in the process. Hopefully they’ll work for you too.

1. Worry less about being smart and more about being clear

There’s nothing that stirs my nerves worse than thinking about what the audience thinks. Do they think I’m doing weird things with my hands? Do they think I’m pacing too much? Do they notice that I sometimes talk out of the side of my mouth when I get really excited?

If relatively harmless questions are enough to induce low-grade bouts of self-consciousness, pulling intelligence into the mix catapults you into the self-doubt stratosphere. And, unlike Jeff Bezos, I like it right here on earth.

So let’s briskly tackle a few reasons why worrying about how smart your audience thinks you are is a less helpful approach for presentations.

First, perceptions of intelligence are subjective and you can’t hope to change people’s longstanding intelligence metrics no matter how good your presentation is. Second, the idea that any single presentation is an appropriate measure of anyone’s intelligence is absurd. And, third, focusing on being smart often risks being unclear — whether it’s because it lulls you into introducing jargon or makes you fumble through overly complex language. Either way, I avoid these issues by steering clear of ego-stroking.

When I’m working on a talk, I ask myself a simple question first and foremost: what’s my message and is this a clear way to deliver it?

When that’s the central question animating my work, there’s less room for nerves because I have much more control over delivery. I can’t control whether someone thinks I’m smart. I can work very hard to make sure I’m clear.

2. Focus on the magic of transferring an idea from your mind into the mind of your listeners

Reading a book on TED talks several years ago reshaped the way that I approach public speaking. Before picking up the book, I thought the key metric to consider after a presentation was whether or not I gave a “great” talk, even if I wasn’t focused on it being a smart one. I often asked myself if people liked my talk, if I might be invited to give others, and what I should do to improve.

I never thought about talks as magical. I never stood in awe of the fact that I could work on a project for years and give someone the gift of understanding it in 15 minutes. I thought the point of presenting was to nail the talk in the process of sharing my work. Not only had my “great talk” approach fueled my nerves, it also prevented me from really enjoying the power of presenting.

I learned this lesson after reading the book and thinking about a previous talk on my own book about gender and birth control inequality. I remembered the woman who told me that my talk changed the way that she thought about birth control. She felt mortified that she had taken just the approach with her kids that I showed had really bad consequences for women in my book — only giving her son and not her daughter condoms based on flawed thinking about gender.

In that moment, I should have felt absolutely amazed. I changed the way she thought about birth control??? With her kids??? Just like I hoped when I wrote the book??? Instead, I felt so hung up on whether or not she thought I gave a great talk that I missed a momentous occasion in my career. What a shame.

Thankfully, rethinking presentations gave me a second chance to experience that moment and feel the wonder that came from realizing that I had successfully moved the intangible idea that had only resided in my mind into hers. Focusing on the magic of sharing that kind of intellectual connection also soothed my nerves around presenting by reinforcing my drive to zero-in on my message. That woman isn’t going to remember whether or not I flubbed a word. She is going to remember that I helped her help her daughter. That’s powerful.

I wish, of course, that I could say that focusing on clarity and transferring an idea from my mind into that of my listeners makes my presentations painless. It doesn’t. There’s still preparing and practicing my talks. But when I go into the process with a healthy focus, making words come out of my mouth for 15 minutes is a whole lot easier. And it wouldn’t be smart to argue with that, whether on stage or off.