Is your audience making you nervous?
Have you ever walked into a room, and felt your confidence suddenly dip?
Maybe there were more, or fewer, people than you expected. Maybe it was someone you recognised who you tend to feel small around, or maybe you just felt more pressure to perform. Even the most confident of us will get this from time to time. It can be momentary or crippling.
Feelings can appear out of the blue sometimes, particularly if we are the speaker at the event.
We all spot a cover up
Knowing how to cover up your confidence blips is helpful, but covering up rather than dealing with the issue can affect our performance. Even if we’re not stumbling over our words or forgetting our place, we can often make ourselves smaller or overcompensate. Either results in your audience detecting that something isn’t quite ‘you’ and that they’re not getting your best presence. In short – they will feel something is off even if they can’t name it.
There’s not always a solution but we can learn to manage the issue better if we see it coming.
Identify the problem
Managing the internal relationship with our audience begins with identifying it. Often it’s something we can predict long before we feel it. Ask yourself these questions: “Am I likely to feel out of place?”, “Is this situation going to feel unusually pressured?, “Is this a group one that I don’t feel confident speaking to?”.
Sense check
Having identified the potential problem consider if this feeling is valid. I’ve seen many parents intimidated at the school gate, almost fearing detention although the possibility passed years ago. If you are delivering an investor pitch then clearly you have something at stake. Our nervous system often reacts on information that’s out of date. Sometimes simply noticing and reminding ourselves that we’re acting on invalid information is enough. I’ve sat with clients to see them suddenly realise the issue they’ve been hanging on to for what it was – and their feelings can change in that moment.
Reframe
Knowing that the problem exists and whether it’s valid gives us a starting point. The next question is ‘How can I reframe this?”. When we reframe the relationship we move it from one where we are speaking to an audience who are somehow ‘better’ than us to one that is simply different. Once we see that then it’s easier to appreciate the value we bring. It’s only because of the difference that we can share a new perspective with our audience, and that’s what the job of the speaker is all about.
Power up
Using this identify / sense check / reframe process is a powerful way to manage those audience related confidence blips. When we can reframe the relationship with our audience, then we become less performance and more present. This is a difference our audience will feel and warm to. We can strengthen our ability to reframe by building a clearer understanding of what makes us unique. One particularly strong tool to help us reframe is journaling. If you’d like to work on this I have created some specific journaling prompts that you can download here https://softlyinspired.co.uk/journalprompt-download/
🔥Need help getting your message heard?
I work with women who build businesses from lived experience, who are deeply connected to what they do and know that what they offer isn’t just important, it’s personal.
Through 1:1 coaching and group programmes I help turn that inner connection into spoken clarity and confidence, so you can grow your business and reach the people you’re here to help.
Discover more at my website https://softlyinspired.co.uk/work-with-julie/