I posted this on my blog and wanted to share it here too!

Are you afraid of speaking publicly?

You know, I think at one point or another, we all are.  I for one have been trying to work my way through this daunting task.  I've been reading my way through on how to handle the stress of it all and have found the following article that is really helping me and maybe it'll help you as well.

So as you read the article below you can see we are not the only ones who have had to try and conquer our fears of speaking in public.  I am definitely going to  take the advice of Dr Orman and try to eliminate the excess stress by not worrying about what people think of me and just have fun!

How To Conquer Public Speaking Fear

By Morton C. Orman, M.D.

Public speaking is a common source of stress for everyone. Many of us would like to avoid this problem entirely, but this is hard to do. Whether we work alone or with large numbers of people, eventually we will need to speak in public to get certain tasks accomplished. And if we want to be leaders or achieve anything meaningful in our lives, we will often need to speak to groups, large and small, to be successful.

Thousands of people have learned to speak in front of groups with little or no stress at all. Many of these people were initially terrified to speak in public. Their knees would shake, their voices would tremble, their thoughts would become jumbled . . . you know the rest. Yet they learned to eliminate their fear of public speaking completely. You and I are no more or less human than they are. If they can conquer the fear of public speaking, so can we!

You don't have to be brilliant, witty, or perfect to succeed. That is not what public speaking is all about. I know it may look that way, but it's not. You can be average. You can be below average. You can make mistakes, get tongue-tied, or forget whole segments of your talk. You can even tell no jokes at all and still be successful. It all depends on how you, and your audience, define "success." Believe me, your audience doesn't expect perfection.

You don't have to deliver mountains of facts or details to give your audience what they truly want. Many studies have shown that people remember very few of the facts or information speakers convey. While you may choose to include lots of facts and information, you only need to make two or three main points to have your talk be successful. You can even have your whole talk be about only one key point, if you wish.