Do you ever feel like you’re in conversation with yourself when speaking in public? Like there’s a little camera watching you from above and you’re in a loop? Do your extremities get cold or hot and do you crumble under the pressure?

Do you have a tendency to watch yourself when you're speaking? Does that get in the way of you connecting to your own ideas or your audience?

This week, my biggest piece of advice is to focus on those you are there to serve. Make your audience the focal point of your attention while speaking and return to them as an anchor each time you get carried to analytical thought or anxious sensations.

Pay attention to your audience. Get curious about them. Be specific. Use a framework (mine is below). Know who you are speaking to and who you are there to serve. Know why you are there, your particular purpose, and make it about your audience. Articulate it so you’re all on the same page. That helps you feel more confident too.

We all naturally default to watching ourselves (judging ourselves? steeling ourselves against nerves, feedback, criticism, or off-the-cuff questions?). Accept it. Expect it. And then focus your attention on those you are there to serve and the impact your good work will have on them.

So, center those you and your work are there to serve. This will take some of the pressure off! Of course, you will naturally go back to centering yourself (we all do) and when you do, reset to that great intention. Here are some things to try: 

1. Articulate an objective, a goal, that centers your audience. Say it out loud if you are hosting, facilitating, or leading. “Our goal today is to celebrate and amplify your great work this year.” This serves as an intentional redirect for you to continue to center your audience, but also actually makes you feel more authoritative and confident.

2. Set an intention. Think about how you want to make your audience feel, and choose an emotion that you feel capable of achieving. Make them feel welcome, or supported, or comfortable. Keep this to yourself and use it to counter any natural tendencies to sell, to prove in the moment.

3. Turn off your self-view on video calls and virtual presentations! This is huge. If you have a tendency to watch yourself, don’t actually watch yourself!

When I use these tools, I float out of my own narrow perspective and see things from another point of view. It helps me feel bigger than the anxiety and less alone in it. It helps me have more generative, expansive thinking, beyond focusing on the fear. It also distracts me from the fear itself, and gives me a place to come home to outside of my anxious mind. It makes me feel more powerful against it.

What do you do to reframe or redefine public speaking, if you’re one of the many of us who struggle with it?