To Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking, Stop Thinking About Yourself

Many speakers initially avoid making eye contact with the members of the audience. While avoiding eye contact with the audience may seem effective for coping with speaking anxiety, it makes them more nervous.

When we speak in front of an audience and we feel all the eyes on us, we avoid eye contact and construct walls around us like looking at the slides, look down, focus on the notes. Even the most confident speakers find ways to distance themselves from the audience.

The best way to overcome this is to turn the focus away from us and start thinking about how you can help the audience by sharing your thoughts. When we do this, we become calmer and less stressed. It may be a bit hard in the beginning but it is very much possible. 

3 recommended steps towards this

Think about your audience, when you prepare your speech

Start with the audience. who will be present, why, what information are they seeking. identify the audience needs, both spoken and unspoken. Craft your presentation to address these needs.

Refocus your brain, right before you speak.

You are the most nervous, just before you speak. At this moment, just remember, how you are going to help your audience, How you are going to share your experiences helping your audience in making their lives better. This would help in calming your nerves and make you more relaxed and you will be looking forward to sharing your presentation with the audience rather than be apprehensive.

Make eye contact when you talk.

One of the biggest mistakes we make is to look at everyone at the same time and in the end looking at nobody. We are used to scanning the room. making eye contact ay make you nervous but it is far easier to make one-to-one conversation than it is to the whole audience at once. make eye contact with a single person by sentence, by thought and move on to another person for the next thought. By focussing on one person at a time you make that person in the room feel that you are talking just to them.

This will make you calmer, more relaxed and more effective in reaching out to your audience and making the desired impact.

Refer: 

To Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking, Stop Thinking About Yourself

by Sarah Gershman HBR SEPTEMBER 17, 2019