Self Reflection-Public Speaking

The verbal presentation anxiety symptoms that I feel are that my pronunciation of a word suffers when I get nervous, and I start to lose track of how I want to communicate my message to my audience. This nervousness causes me to start rambling on, and the rate at which I want to present my message begins to speed up. Nonverbal presentation anxiety symptoms that I feel are that I get nervous, my heart starts beating fast, I start sweating, and my hands start playing with my notes or start messing with my clothing.

I know I have these symptoms because I have done at least 28 presentations, and I have felt all of the symptoms every time I do a presentation or have to stand up in front of a crowd. My reactions to the symptoms are the same and I quickly realized my mistakes after my presentation is over.

The areas that I intend to work on, to reduce my level of presentation anxiety in this class are to reduce my level of nervousness, and to start thinking more positive before I begin my presentation. I intend to prepare for a longer period of time before my presentation, and to visualize myself giving a successful speech. Finally, I intend to work on not expecting perfection, and to visualize all the problems that could happen so I can figure out the best solution for each situation.

What I want to be able to accomplish in this course is to be able to deliver a speech clear and concise without any signs of my presentation anxiety symptoms appearing. I want to be able to find successful ways to calm my nervousness, and find different ways to hide the parts of my anxiety that I have not figured out a successful solution too. Finally, I want to be able to connect with my audience when I am giving a speech or presentation, and I want to be able to deliver my speech or presentation in an informative and interesting way.

How I plan to improvement my weak areas to accomplish my goals are by turning the negative force of stage fright into a positive force by using my past and future experiences with public speaking to loosen my anxiety. I will practice taking slow deep breaths, instead of the fast shallow breaths that I have been taken in the past. I will keep my hands to my side or behind my back, to keep them from fidgeting with my notes or with my clothing. Also I plan to start thinking more positive about my speaking ability by focusing on my weaknesses, and by visualizing my solutions to these weaknesses