Panic, Embarrassed, Exposed,
No.... that's not how I'm right now. Mostly those are the feelings I had as a 14 year old boy. On the very first day of high school, My English Teacher Mr. Meredith had each of us stand up and introduce ourselves. When class was over he called me over and said hey Matt you're really good at this talking thing. I need you on Saturday to show up at the speech contest doing as I was told. I prepared a 10-minute presentation on karate it was something I was passionate about and it was pretty easy to do. Now that cold September Saturday morning when I showed up. I was shocked the room was much larger than I had expected there were many more people
- there're my friends
- my friends parents who were serving as judges
- and the girl I had a crush on at that moment
I felt tremendous anxiety in the first 10 seconds of my 10-minute presentation my life changed forever. You see I started my presentation with a karate kick. I was told to do this because it would engage the audience and get their attention but because of my anxiety I forgot to put on my special karate pants you know the ones with a little extra room down there you get where this is going I ripped my pants from belt loop to zipper in that moment.
- Panik,
- Malu,
- Canggung,
Tentu itu bukan perasaan yang saya rasakan sekarang ini. Tapi perasaan2 itu yang serih tampil (di depan umum). dan saya rasakan ketika saya berusia 14tahun, ketika pertama kali masuk SMA. Guru Bahasa Inggrisku, Pak Meredith menyuruh kita masing2 berdiri dan memperkenalkan diri. Setelah kelas selesai, Guru itu memanggilku "Hei Matt, engkau bener2 mumpuni dalam berbahasa. Aku butuh kau untuk menampilkan kemampuan itu saat sabtu nanti, dalam kontes pidato. Aku mempersiapkan penampilanku selama 10menit lamanya, untuk berpidato di depan panggung, dan mempromosikan karate di depan para hadirin. Akhirnya waktu yang aku nantikan tiba, kala itu Sabtu Pagi di Bulan September yang dingin, aku tampil di depan panggung. Aku terkejut melihat ruanganya, ternyata lebih besar dari apa yang saya kira sebelumnya. Woow... banyak orang yang datang pula.
- ada banyak temen2ku yang datang
- bahkan orang tua temenku yang datang juga, ada yang jadi juri kala itu
- dan juga ada perempuan yang aku sukai pada waktu itu, datang pula.
Aku merasakan kecemasan yang luar biasa dalam 10 detik pertama dari presentasi 10 menitku. yang kemudian akan mengubah hidupku selamanya. Tahukah kalian? saya memulai presentasiku dengan tendangan karate. Aku disuruh melakukan ini karena itu akan membangun keterikatan dengan penonton dan menarik perhatian mereka. Tetapi karena aku terlalu cemas, aku lupa mengenakan celana khusus untuk karate. Tentu kalian tahu kan? celana karate kan lebih kendor daripada celana biasa, karena ada ruang ekstra. Nah betapa memalukanya waktu itu, aku sampai merobek celanaku, dari ikat pinggang sampai resleting karena tendanganku yang terlalu bersemangan, dan ditambah rasa cemas yang luar biasa.
I learned the impact of anxiety on communication and from that moment I have dedicated my life to helping otherse Learn to address this fear. Each of us has stories to share input to give and ideas to spread. If we allow anxiety to get in the way of that we miss out society misses out and we lose valuable diverse voices now I am NOT alone in my anxiety in communication. If you have ever given spontaneous feedback, given a presentation spoken up in a meeting or even asked somebody on a date. You know what this anxiety feels like. Research shares with us that 85% of people feel anxious in high-stakes speaking situations and quite frankly I think the other 15% are lying I think we can create a situation in which they would feel nervous too so we must act to manage our anxiety. So we can accomplish our communication goals.
Aku belajar, bahwa dampak dari kecemasan komunikasi dan pada waktu itu memantapkan kemauanku untuk menolong orang lain bagaimana mengalihkan ketakutan saat akan tampil di depan umum. Setiap kita punya cerita untuk dibagikan kepada yang lain, masukan untuk diberikan kepada yang lain, dan IDE untuk ditularkan kepada yang lain. Jika kita mempersilahkan rasa takut itu menghinggapi kita terus menerus, kita akan melewatkan komunikasi sosial kita.
Saat kamu pernah memberikan tanggapan yang spontan, dari sebuah wacana, atau memberi presentasi saat meeting, atau bahkan saat engkau akan mengajak keluar orang yang kalian cintai. Kalian pasti akan paham dengan kecemasan yang akan anda rasakan ini. Ada sebuah riset tentang hal ini, bahwa 85% orang itu merasa cemas saat berbicara di depan umum. Terus terang saya pikir 15% yang lainya telah berbohong. Aku kira, kita bisa menciptakan situasi yang mana mereka akan merasa gugup juga, jadi kita harus berusaha untuk mengendalikan kecemasan kita.
Now I use that word managed very carefully. I don't think we can ever truly overcome our anxiety. Nor would we want to. Anxiety is actually helpful.
- It gives us energy
- it helps us focus
- it tells us what we're doing is important
But we must manage, it so it doesn't manage us. And it's not just to help us feel more confident, it helps our audience as well. How do you feel when you see a nervous speaker communicate. Some of you might like to watch people suffer but most of us don't. Most of us feel very uncomfortable in awkward. In fact I call this second hand anxiety. The communicators anxiety makes us feel nervous as an audience. And therefore we're distracted and we can't pay attention to the message. So we need to manage our anxiety not just to help ourselves as communicators, but to help our audience get our message.
Before I introduce you to some techniques that can help us manage our anxiety. I think we need to spend a few moments understanding where this anxiety comes from. I believe it's hardwired in us. It's based on evolution. We are wired to be very concerned about our relative status to others. Now I'm not saying who drives the fanciest car or who has the most likes to a post they've just put up. I'm talking about the status that existed when our species was first evolving .And we were hanging out in groups of about a hundred and fifty people. Your relative status there meant everything. Ament access to resources food shelter reproduction. It was absolutely critical that you had status within that group. It was a matter of life or death so this constant surveillance and understanding of our status is something that we carry forward to this day. Yet we can manage it but we have to take a two-pronged approach. We have to first address the symptoms as well as the sources.
The symptoms have to do with what goes on in our body physiologically and what goes on in our mind psychologically. And sources are things that actually make our anxiety worse.
So let's get started. For some of us when we start communicating in high-stakes situations we feel our heart pound maybe
- we get a little shaky
- maybe we perspire or blush
We can manage these symptoms take a deep breath before you start the kind of breath you would do if you're doing yoga or Tai Chi or Qi Gong that'll calm you down . If you shake gesture broadly big broad gestures they can really help that adrenalin go somewhere most nervous people make themselves small and tight and they hold it in and shake if you perspire a blush hold something cold in the palm of your hand it'll cool you down much like putting a cold compress on your forehead or the back of your neck if you have a fever holding something cold reduces your core body temperature reduces the perspiration reduces the blushing you've all experienced this in Reverse on a cold day have you ever held hot coffee or tea and felt how it warmed you up we're just doing the opposite there are things you can do to manage the physiological symptoms you have around anxiety now what about the cognitive symptoms the thing that makes people really nervous cognitively is their own anxiety it works something like this you're sitting in a meeting and your turn is about to come up and as you're sitting there you start getting a little shaky you might have some beads of perspiration on your brow and you start thinking to yourself oh my goodness this is really important I should have prepared more I can'tbelieve I'm in this situation why am I doing this I'm not my colleague this sucks that's your anxiety making you more ervous there is a way that you can short-circuit this instead of running
away from your anxiety greet it say to
yourself this is me feeling nervous it
makes sense that I'm nervous I'm about
to do something of consequence and
importance and by giving yourself
permission to feel anxious you actually
give yourself a sense of agency you can
take a breath walk around the building
this will help you feel composed rather
than as if your anxiety is spiraling out
of control we can do things that manage
our physiological and psychological
symptoms but we also have to address the
things that make our anxiety worse the
sources the number one fear I hear from
people is I'm afraid I'm going to forget
I'm gonna blank out a great way to
manage this is to have a map you can't
get lost if you have a map a map is
nothing more in communication than a
plan a structure a design there are many
structures that can help you with your
communication my favorite is the what so
what now what structure you start by
talking about what it is you're
communicating could be your idea your
plan your product a process you then
explain why it's important to your
audience how do they value from what
you're saying and then finally you
explain what is next what comes
afterwards by having a structure like
what so what now what you are less
likely to forget and by the way it helps
the people you're speaking to remember
what you're saying as well now another
big accelerant to anxiety has to do with
the valuation in judgment we feel the
audience is doing on us
a great way to manage this is to
redirect their attention have them focus
on something else so if you're giving a
presentation show a video clip take a
poll if you're in interpersonal
communication ask a question pass around
a hand out these distract people from
paying attention to you
it gives you an opportunity to calm down
and the cool thing is it gets them more
involved and engaged it's a true win-win
the last source I'd like to talk about
has to do with how we see our
communication raise your hand if you
have done one of these four things
before in your life has anybody done any
singing dancing acting or played a sport
everybody in each of those activities
there's a right way and a wrong way to
do it you're performing if you're an
actor and you miss speak your line at
the wrong time in the wrong place you've
made a mistake not just for you but the
audience and the other actors if you're
an athlete and you don't do what your
sport requires at the right time in the
right way you've done it wrong in fact
some sports keep track of the errors you
make we carry this mentality of right or
wrong into our communication I am here
to tell you as somebody who has been
doing this for a long long time there is
no right way to communicate there are
better ways in worse ways certainly but
no one right way so we need to replace
the way we see communication as a
performance as something else and I'd
like to suggest we need to reframe it as
a conversation how do you do that first
and foremost put your attention on your
audience you're in service of their
needs with this audience centric
approach it makes it more conversational
second use conversational language words
like us you and we that involves people
and finally ask questions questions by
their very nature are conversations
there to weigh in so doing you make the
interaction less stressful for you and
more engaging for your audience
so taken together there are things that
we can do to manage our anxiety by
addressing both symptoms and sources now
this isn't necessarily easy it takes
time it takes persistence we're fighting
against ingrained anxiety and years of
learned behaviors and habits but with a
little self kindness in patience we can
learn to manage our anxiety I see it
happen all the time let me share a story
with you
I met Erma who is a 72 year old
grandmother a couple years ago Burma
like me had a very traumatic experience
in high school she contributed some
comment in class and her English teacher
looked at her and said that is the
absolute worst communication I have ever
heard from that moment on Burma actively
avoided communicating with others so
much so that she chose the profession as
a research librarian specifically so she
wouldn't have to talk to many people but
one day her granddaughter who she loved
very much asked her to give a toast at
her wedding
Burma wanted to fulfill this request and
that's where our paths crossed I'll
never forget the look on Irma's face
when she told me of her goal it was a
combination of sheer terror and complete
determination now I am thrilled to share
with you that Burma after three months
of hard work and a little encouragement
gave an amazing toast the joy on her
face is something that I will never
forget like Burma we all can learn to
manage our anxiety regardless of if
you're presenting at a wedding or in a
meeting if you're pitching or protesting
you can learn to feel more confident
when you communicate and we all benefit
from the stories you're going to share
the input you're going to give and the
ideas that you're going to spread I so
look forward to your speaking up without
freaking out
thank you
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