Building Self Esteem

Building self esteem is something that, if done successfully, can change your life. Being able to accept yourself, to have confidence in yourself, and to know that you are good enough can take you a lot further in life compared to thinking that you're worthless and that no one likes you or accepts you. In this article, I will talk about where having low self-esteem comes from and what you can do to help build it back up.

If you want to build self esteem, the first thing you need to understand is how it got so low in the first place. Understand that much of how you see yourself was formed from a very young age. For most people, having low self esteem has to do with their parents. To be more exact, it had to do with your misinterpretation of what you experienced or what you were told as a child. 

 

One of the most common beliefs that people with low self esteem have is the belief that they are not good enough. No matter how hard they try or how well they do, they will feel like it just wasn't enough. This is most likely caused by having parents who said things that made you believe you weren't good enough. They may have communicated this verbally or through their body language. Either way, the message you received was that you were not good enough.

It doesn't stop in your childhood though. Because you developed this false belief, you went through life looking at the world with this false perception of yourself. It's like walking around with a pair shades with yellow lenses. Everything you see, hear, or experience is perceived through those yellow lenses. In other words, the reality that you have experienced has been tainted by the beliefs that were instilled in you at a young age. Someone can compliment you on a job well done but through your eyes, you're still not worthy and may even believe that person is being insincere even though they are not.

Understand that reality and what you perceive to be reality can be two very different things. Building your self esteem will be a lot easier when you realize this. What you experienced as a child that led to you having self esteem issues, has been misinterpreted. What do I mean? Well, if your parents told you that you are not good enough, does that really mean that you are not good enough?

Think back to when you were young and try to remember an incident where your parents or some other authority figure told you something negative like you'll never amount to anything. Notice how that feels. Now think back on that incident or incidents again but only this time, see it as a third person watching the event take place.

If you could talk to that child version of you, what would you say? Is it possible that your parents just said those things because they thought it would motivate you to do more? Is it possible that their opinions about you as a child have nothing to do with you as an adult? Do you think your parents have special powers that enable them to predict a person's future? Do you believe that people can change?

What do these questions have to do with building self esteem and confidence? If you can understand that it's possible that you may have misinterpreted what your parents said or at least decipher their true intentions incorrectly, then you will realize that you have been walking around with a false sense of low self esteem all of these years. When you don't think highly of yourself, when you believe that you aren't good enough or important enough, your mind will search for evidence to make it true.

On the other hand, if you realized that your are good enough, that you misheard your parents or interpreted their intentions incorrectly, you can start to destroy your low sense of self esteem by using logic and questioning whether or not what you believed to be true all of these years is actually wrong.

There are tons of ways to build self esteem but one of the most powerful ways is what I just described. It is to simply recognize the fact that you have been looking at the world through a lens that only focused on things that reinforced your false belief that you aren't good enough. After all, your mind doesn't want to make you a liar. If you believe you are worthless, your mind will prove that you are by warping reality to make you see things that will back that belief up.

If you are unfamiliar with how beliefs and perception works, that's okay. The good news is that the reverse is true as well. If you believe that you are good enough, that you are a likeable person, that you are meant to do great things in life, your mind will create a new lens and focus on things that will back up that belief. There is no "reality". Reality is what your mind perceives it to be.

So to summarize this topic of building self esteem, realize that the cause of your low self esteem started when you were a child, before you knew how to use logic to determine what was true and what was false. This is why there is a lot of building self esteem in children programs. That's where it all starts.

Realize that all of the so called "evidence" that you have seen up until this point of your life that "proves" you aren't good enough or people don't like you or you're not important was a distortion of reality caused by your belief that you are worthless. Now that you know better, use your logic and common sense and go back into your childhood memories, to those times when you were told that you were a piece of crap, and challenge those statements. If parents can predict the future based on the past, they would all be filthy rich by investing in the stock market.

You are much more than who you think you are. Besides, now that you know you have been wrong in thinking that you aren't good enough, you can begin to take charge of your life. Building self esteem comes down to understanding that you can control your beliefs. The belief in who you are and what you are capable of achieving in life is up to you to decide, not your parents. Now that you know this, make sure you say the right things to your kids if you have any. It will have a major affect on their life.

Dealing With Disappointment

When it comes to dealing with disappointment, the way you choose to handle it can determine how your life will turn out. When we feel disappointed, all that means is that something or someone failed to meet up to our expectations. For most people, this occurs when they try to reach for a goal and come up short. Everyone will have to deal with this. They way you handle this situation will determine your success or failure in life. Let's take a deeper look into why we feel disappointed and some things you can do to overcome this feeling.

Expectations are nothing but rules. These rules will dictate, at least in your mind, what has to happen before a satisfactory result is achieved. Let's say you wanted to lose 15 months in 30 days. You go out there and you start working out and eating right. You do everything the experts tell you and when the 30 days is up, you step on the scale and find out you only lost 10 pounds. Chances are that you will feel quite disappointed. The reason is because you set a rule on what has to happen for you to feel satisfied.

So what do you do in this situation or any other situation where you fail to achieve what you set out to achieve? If you do what most people do and give up or complain and whine about how you never get what you want, then you are going to continue to feel miserable. If you decide that you are going to adjust and do better next time, you will be able to succeed at dealing with disappointment in a productive way.

Remember that disappointment is just a feeling that is caused by the rules you set up. This works externally as well. Let's say you expected your child to get straight A's but he or she ends up with mostly B's. The only reason you will feel disappointed is because you created the rule that unless your child gets all A's, you will not be satisfied.

So how can you use this fact to help you in dealing with disappointments? There are two things you can do. The first is to realize that when you are feeling disappointed, it's because certain rules that you created weren't met. Whether the rules were placed on you or someone else it doesn't matter. In order to deal with this feeling, one thing you can do is to change the rules.

Instead of saying, "If I don't lose 15 pounds in 30 days, I am going to be so disappointed", you can say, "I will do everything I can to reach my goal but if I happen to fall short, I will at least know that I gave it my all." This is just an example but hopefully you got the point. You made the rules that caused yourself to feel disappointed which means you can also change it.

The second thing you can do relates to rules you set on other people. If you want to stop being disappointed all the time when it comes to other people, create rules that make it hard for people to make you disappointed. The rules of what has to happen for you to be satisfied weren't something you were born with. You created them. It's great to have high expectations for yourself because you have control over your actions but when you place too many rules on other people who you don't have control over, be prepared to have a lot of disappointments.

Dealing is disappointment just requires understand what causes this feeling to come up in the first place. Once you understand that it's a result of you or other people failing to meet your rules of what has to happen for you to feel satisfied, you can begin to start changing those rules to make it harder for you to feel disappointed.

So What Makes people Happy ?

So what makes people happy? Will more money do it? We have all heard people who a fortune but ended up committing suicide. Will fame do it? How many celebrities have you heard turning to drugs and going in and out of rehab all the time? How about having the perfect body? Having the perfect job? If you ask people what makes them happy, you will probably get a ton of different answers but there are two fundamental things that will ensure happiness. The first is knowing that they are growing mentally, spiritually, etc. The second is feeling that they are making a difference.

Many people will make the mistake that happiness comes from something external. They think that new sports car will make them happy or that raise or getting a new house. Although these things can give you temporary feelings of happiness, they are short-lived. Think about the time you bought your first home or car. You were probably excited. How did you feel several years later? Probably not as excited since you got used to it right? Many people would be overjoyed if they can make a $100k a year. People who made that income for the first time were thrilled but after doing it for so long, year after year, it just becomes the norm, another paycheck.

So the first part of what makes people happy, as mentioned earlier, is growth. When you feel like you are improving your life, that's when you are happy. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to constantly buy bigger and better things. It's much deeper than that. You need to feel like you are growing on a personal level. You need to know that the essence of who you are is continually improving in some way. If you want to know how to find happiness, look within. Work on yourself, your goals, and your dreams. Keep looking for ways to make yourself better today than you were last year. This can mean different things to different people but the point is that you have to feel like you are improving and getting better as a human being as time goes by.

The second part of what makes people happy is that sense of contribution. Everyone wants to believe that they were put here to do something great. You don’t have to do something that will change the world though. As long as you know that by you being here, by doing what you are doing, you are helping someone somewhere, it will bring you happiness. For some people, being a parent is happiness because they brought a new life into their world and they are responsible for its happiness.

What makes people happy at work? Not a paycheck, as mentioned before, after a while, the excitement goes away. It's that sense of making a difference. It's that sense that you are a part of something much larger than yourself. This is what makes people happy in life. Being a part of or creating something that will outlast them. It's doing something that will make some sort of a difference in other people's lives. This is why you will often see people who have all the money in the world want to give it away. They realize that money alone doesn't bring happiness. Contribution does.

These are two ways of how to find happiness. Are these the only answers to what makes people happy? That depends on how you define happiness. You can be happy just to be alive. You can be happy just to be able to see. You will be happier the moment you stop making being happy so hard. It's a feeling that you create. That being said, personal growth and contribution is two strong reasons to be happy.

Lessons of Life

                                   Perfection is Being Beautifully Imperfect

Goal Setting

Goal setting is a process of determining what sort of outcome you want and developing a plan to make that outcome a reality. It is one of the most important skills you can develop because the goals you achieve will have a direct effect on your level of happiness. It's the process of wanting something and going out there and getting it. There are correct ways and incorrect ways of doing this however. This article will give you some tips on how to set goals in order to have the best chance of achieving them.
There are a couple of criteria when it comes to setting a goal. The first is that your goal needs to be specific. Many people make the mistake of creating a goal that is way too broad such as wanting to losing weight or wanting to make more money. That's like getting into a taxi and telling the driver you want to get from point A to point B but not telling him where point B is.
If you want more money, you need to determine exactly how much more money you want to make. If you want to lose weight, exactly how much do you want to lose? By being clear on what you want, not only will you be able to come up with a better plan, you will also be able to know when you actually hit your goal.
The next thing you want to do when it comes to goal setting is to set a deadline. The reason for this is because it will create a sense of urgency. If you set a goal to start a business but don't set a deadline, chances are, you'll just end up putting it off. It's like a teacher telling the students to write an essay but not telling them when it will be due. Chances are that the students won't ever get started. The deadline you choose should be reasonable. Don't set goals like losing 20 pounds by tomorrow.
The last thing you want to make sure you do in order to this personal goal setting session more effective is to come up with a bunch of compelling reasons why you want to achieve the goal. Most people fail to achieve their goals simply because their desire isn't strong enough. Sure, we'd all like to be a millionaire but how many people are willing to put in the work that is necessary to get there? We would all like to have the perfect body but how many people are willing to workout every day and eat the right foods for years?
Saying you want something and having the burning desire to get it no matter what are two different things.
If you don't know what sort of goal you want, then what you can do is a brainstorm session. Basically, you will take out a sheet of paper and start to write down anything and everything you can think of that you want to have in your life. Don't worry about how you are going to achieve it, just write. You should write down financial goals, fitness goals, relationship goals, personal development goals, and even spiritual goals. Write down where you want to travel, the kind of things you want to have, anything you can think of. Do this for about 10 minutes.
Once you are done, you will go through your list and write down a 1, 3, 5, 10, or 20 next to each goal. This is the amount of years you want to achieve the goal by. You will have long term goals as well as short-term ones. Once you are done, circle all of your 1 year goals. Once you do that, it's time to choose one out of those 1 year goals. This is the goal that you will focus on. This is basically your goal setting worksheet that you may want to keep. As you complete each goal, just cross it off the list.
The reason why you want to narrow it down to one goal is because you will have a much greater chance of achieving it if you can put all of your focus into it. Before you start on the goal, the last part of this goal setting process is to write down all of the reasons why you absolutely must achieve this goal. Also write down the consequences of not achieving this goal. Remember, making it compelling. These are the reasons that will help you keep going even when you feel like giving up.
 The more you set and achieve your goals, the better you will get at it and the more incredible your life will be.

Effective Communication

Developing the skill of effective communication can do wonders for the quality of your life and your relationships. One of the major causes of arguments and disagreements is not being able to convey the right message. Far too many marriages have ended in divorce due to miscommunication. If you look at the business world, lack of proper communication can cause all sorts of problems from loss of sales, loss of jobs, to the downfall of companies. Let's explore some ways on how you can improve your communication skills in order to better send your message to the other person.

So what is effective communication anyway? Simply put, it is the condition where a receiver gets the message from the sender in exactly the way the sender has intended it. In other words, if you tell someone your phone number and they get it correctly, you have succeeded. If however, you give your phone number but the other person gets it wrong, then there is a problem. It can be the sender's fault, the receiver's fault, or both. These misinterpretations of the message are called barriers.

So what are some common barriers of effective communication? One common problem is that the receiver doesn't want to listen to the sender. I'm sure you have experienced this. You are trying to tell someone something and they just won't listen to you. It can be because they aren't focused, or they are upset and don't want to bother, or they just don't care. Another common barrier has to do with the sender not conveying the message clearly. This can be due to things like not being able to come up with the right words, giving a bad example, or simply not understanding the message enough to explain it to the receiver.

Having effective communication skills can be critical if you are talking about business. Let's say your boss asks you to do something and you end up doing the wrong thing. Whether it's the boss's fault for not giving you clear instructions or you not receiving the message correctly, the bottom line is that the job wasn't done. This can cost the company money. This is why having effective business communications is so vital whether it's verbal or written. Miscommunication can cost a lot of money. Taking time to work on effective communication in the workplace will not only help the business run more smoothly but it will also prevent resentments and arguments.

When communicating a message to the other person, one thing you can do is to make sure the other person understands your message. Don't just assume that they do, make sure of it especially if it's something really important. You can do this simply by asking them to explain what you just told them. Just make sure you do it in a nice way.

As the receiver or listener, it's a good practice to paraphrase what the other person just told you. This will accomplish two things. The first thing is that you will make sure you understood the message in your own words. The second thing is that the other person will know that you are truly listening. This will also reduce the chances of any miscommunication.

There are a lot of courses you can take or books you can read about the subject of effective communication. Sometimes, you can say the right things, have the listener hear exactly what you said, and still have miscommunications happen. This can occur when the two parties have different definitions of certain words or even facial expressions. This is especially important in relationships where just using one wrong word can set off a chain reaction that can end up in the relationship ending.

Constant communication and refining the quality and effectiveness of the communication can do wonders for a relationship. It might not be the easiest thing to do but since having effective communication is so important, you need to spend the time to develop that skill as well as get your partner to learn it with you.

The 7 P's of Goal Setting

When you are inspired by the generosity of philanthropists, you aspire to be one of them. However, you have to be rich. In order to be rich you need to do something to bring you the wealth. What you need is a goal to turn your dream into reality. Here are the 7 P’s in goal setting:

1. Passionate: Are you fervently interested in what you intend to do. Not only that, are you able to do it easily and better than other people? Your goal is your inspiration and aspiration.

2. Positive mindset: A positive mental attitude is essential to realize your objectives. You will look at things on the bright side and work diligently towards your goals.

3. Practical: Is it achievable? Is it useful to yourself and others? Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. When you have many goals, set priority for each goal and work accordingly so that you are not overwhelmed.

4. Put in writing: Written goals are powerful tool. It is precise, clear and written in positive terms. It spells out in great details the tasks for each stage and the completion dates. You will be kept posted to do your daily tasks because you notice it every day.

5. Plan: You set yearly, monthly, weekly and daily tasks. Your plan is your road map. You follow accordingly to get what you want in life.

6. Pay the price: A goal is not a goal when you can get something easily. It involves time and tremendous effort. It takes blood, sweat and tears to reach your goal.

7. Perseverance: Do not be disheartened by setbacks along the way. Look at failures and problems as valuable lessons to learn. There is no overnight success. It can take many years to achieve your goals.

Goals give you meaning in life. They provide direction and measure your success. You know what you are looking for and every day you strive to reach your objectives.

Achieve Your Goals

Why should you do everything in your power to achieve your goals? Why should you go through the trouble of disciplining yourself to take consistent action each and every day towards your goals? Why should you have to deal with setbacks and challenges that will bring you to your knees? Why do go through any of these things just to accomplish your goals? One reason is because if you don't, you will feel regret. The second reason is because you will miss your chance to change other people's lives.

When people get to the end of their lives, they will even feel fulfilled or full of regret. If there is something you have always wanted to do, do it. Even if there a possibility that you may fail, do it. Realize that most of the things we regret in life will come failing to take action, not taking action. In other words, we will have more regrets over the things that we didn't do than the things that we did do.

So when you achieve your goals, how does that affect other people's lives? Well, if you think about it, we are all motivated by one of two things. The first is desperation. When we become desperate, when our backs are against the wall, when there is no other choice, we will spring into action. There are hundreds of stories of people who went from being sick of being broke and living in poverty to becoming successful. The second reason people are motivated is inspiration.

When you see someone achieve massive success, you start to believe you can to. The problem is that many people see successful people as being lucky. Now if you achieve your goal, you will be able to inspire the people around you to believe in themselves because they won't see you as just being lucky. Whether you are trying to achieve your financial goals, fitness goals or any other kind of goal, just realize that your success or failure in achieving that goal doesn't just affect you, it affects everyone around you.

Learning how to achieve your goals and more importantly, putting what you learn into action, will help inspire others to pursue their own goals with the same determination that you had in achieving your goals. No one said living your dreams was easy, it's not. That is why so many people end up quitting. There are far too many stories of failure and not enough stories of success. No matter how big or small your goal is, do everything you can to accomplish it. Your accomplishment can possibly inspire someone to become more than they thought they could become.

Stop Procrastination

Being able to stop procrastinating can completely start to change your life around for the better. Procrastination occurs when you have something to do, you know you should be doing it, but you for one reason or another, you're not doing it. This can be a habit that can literally destroy your life if you don't take control of it. This article will be about why we procrastinate as well as give you some tips to help you take action more often in order to achieve your goals and get done what needs to get done.

What Causes Procrastination?

Before you can stop procrastination, you first need to understand what causes it in the first place. It's actually quite simple. The reason why we do or don't do anything comes down to two things: Pain and Pleasure.

Everything we do comes down to either avoiding pain or gaining pleasure. Let me give you an example. Have you ever procrastinated on studying or writing a term paper? Of course you have. But why do we do this when we know it's important? The reason is because we associate more pain to taking action than not taking action. Now what normally ends up happening after you have procrastinated to the last minute? I don't know about you but no matter how much I would procrastinate on doing something, there will come a time when I will just bite the bullet and just get it done. The reason is because after a while, NOT getting that task done is more painful than just getting it done.

Understanding why you procrastinate will help you stop being a procrastinator. Think about the last time you put something off. Now ask yourself why you put it off. Chances are, the reason why you just didn't get the job done was because you associated some type of pain to taking action. Now think about something you don't have a problem doing like going out with your friends. The reason why you won't put something like that off is because you associate pleasure to doing it.

How to Stop Procrastinating

Here are some steps to stop procrastination. The first thing you will want to do is to figure out what is causing you to associate pain to getting a task done. Let's say you want to clean out the garage. Just thinking about it makes you shiver. Well, that's the reason why you have been putting it off. It's what you visualize in your mind that is causing you the pain. You haven't actually done anything yet so in reality, you aren't experiencing any pain.

This means you need to work on what you are focusing on in your mind. In this case, instead of thinking about how long cleaning the garage is going to take, focus on how great it would feel once it's all cleaned up. Or you can focus on all the free time you will have after you get this task over with.

The point here is to get yourself to associate pleasure to getting the task done. When you can get yourself to look forward to taking action, you won't procrastinate.

Another way you can stop procrastinating is to associate more pain to NOT taking action. Let's say you need to get back into shape but you keep putting off going to the gym and no matter how much you try to tell yourself how great you will look if you get yourself to go to the gym, you still don't go. In this case, you will need to focus on the pain of not getting into shape. Imagine how your body and health will be 5 years from now if you don't start taking better care of yourself. Now imagine how you will look 10 years from now, 20 years from now.

The key to making this work is to actually feel the pain you would cause yourself by not taking action. Where would your life be 5, 10, or 20 years from now if you keep letting procrastination take the best of you? If you can make this experience intense enough, it will drive you to take immediate action.

Conclusion

There are other ways to stop procrastination but they all come down to either avoiding pain or gaining pleasure. If you are a guy, think about it. How far will guys go to impress a girl in hopes that the will get lucky? They will do things they never thought they can get themselves to do. How about if you're a mom? How far will you go to keep your children from starving? Will you do anything, even work at a job you hate, just to give them what they need?

Knowing how to stop procrastination is the first step. The second and final step is to make taking action a habit. The more you can get yourself to immediate action, the less you will be inclined to procrastinate. Putting things off is just a habit. The more you do it, the more you will continue doing it.

In order to stop procrastinating, you will need to get in the habit of taking action regardless of whether you feel like it or not. Focusing on the pain of not following through or the pleasure of getting something done will work but sometimes, you will be too lazy to even focus on anything. This is where having the habit of taking immediate action will come into play.

When the choice comes down to getting something done and putting it off, you will get it done. This one habit, if you can develop it, will change your life. The alternative is reaching the end of your life and having nothing but regret. Develop the habit taking action and stop procrastinating and you will prevent that situation from happening.

Self Help Tips for Depression

If you are looking for some depression self help tips to feel more alive again, this article will give you some suggestions. Before you read on however, keep in mind that if you have a severe case of depression, get help right away. Depression isn't something you should be ashamed or embarrassed about. It happens to millions of people and there are people waiting to help you fight this problem. If you just feel a bit down every now and then and just want some tips on how to pick yourself up, then read on.

Everyone goes through some stage of depression every now and then. Some people will experience it more than others. It can be a sign that something is mentally or physically wrong. Some people use it as a reason to escape their problems. Regardless of why you may feel depressed, there are some things you can do to help make yourself feel better.

If you go into any book store and go over to the self help aisle, you will be able to find many depression self help books. These books can help you have a better understanding of what makes you feel the way you feel and can offer you some strategies to help you feel better. These tips may or may not work depending on the severity of your problem. Let me remind you again that if you have a severe case of depression, you will want to seek professional help. There really are people who care.

Let's get into what determines the way we feel. There are two main things. The first is how you are using your body. If you ask 100 people to describe how a depressed person walks and talks, 100 out of 100 times, you will get the same answer regardless of language and culture. The answers will include things like having a slouched back, walking slowly, breathing shallowly, and an overall downward look on the person's face.

If I asked you to describe a happy person, would you be able to do it? Of course you can. Most likely, this person will be smiling, walking upright, breathing fully, and will generally walk faster.

If you are feeling a bit depressed at the moment, here is a depression self help experiment you can try. What I'd like you to do first is to stand up straight. You want to have your chest stick out a little bit and have your shoulders relaxed and your back straight. The next thing I want you to do is to breathe a little bit faster. From here, look straight up at the ceiling and put the biggest grin possible on your face and leave it there for 30 seconds.

What I'd like you to do is see if you can feel depressed without changing your body or facial expression. If you actually do this, you will find that it's pretty much impossible. So now you know that your physiology is one major factor in the way you feel. If you want to learn more about this anxiety depression self help technique, you can read up on a science called Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP of short.

The other factor that will determine how you feel is what you focus on. If you walk around focusing on how your life sucks and how no one loves you or how everything in your life is a disaster, then of course you're depressed. Tell me someone who can keep focusing on those things and not be depressed. So besides changing your body posture, another thing you will want to do is change your focus. What we focus is primarily determined by the questions that we ask ourselves on a consistent basis.

So here is a self help for depression exercise you can do. Try to notice what type of questions you're asking yourself on a daily basis. If it helps, you can even write it down. What you will find out is that most of those questions are negative questions that are designed to make you depressed. Every time you ask yourself a question, your mind will come up with an answer whether or not the question is valid.

For example, if your life is going great and you ask yourself, "What is wrong with my life", your mind will come up with an answer to that question. Ask questions like that enough times and sooner or later, you will start to feel like there really is something wrong with your life even if it was going great. If you understand this then you will realize that asking better questions can help change your focus and will therefore help you feel less depressed.

You will want to ask questions like, "What is good in my life right now? What am I most grateful for?" Now, your mind might say, "Nothing" but don't settle for that answer. Keep asking yourself these positive questions and expect to have a positive answer and you will eventually get one. The more you focus on what is good in your life, the better you will feel. No matter what you are going through, it can be a lot worse couldn't it? That's something to be grateful for right there.

Again, if you want to learn more about this type of approach, read books about NLP. You can even read, "Unlimited Power" by Anthony Robbins as well. He's a lot more entertaining to read. He basically built his career on teaching these types of techniques. The self help with depression strategy can work wonders but it may take some practice so be patient. There are lots of depression self help groups that you can join as well. Just remember that these depression self help techniques are for people who don't have a severe case of depression.

Fear of Public Speaking

Do you have a fear of public speaking? I would guess that if you are reading this, you probably do. For the longest time, I had the same fear. It's actually not that uncommon. In fact, various studies have shown that the fear of speaking in public is ranked higher than the fear of death. In other words, some people would rather die than have to speak in public. This may sound a bit extreme to many of you but if you get nervous, shaky, and sweat like crazy just at the taught of speaking in front of a group of people, then you can probably see that it's somewhat understandable, at least at the moment.

I remember I used to be deathly afraid of public speaking. My legs would get weak as I made my way in front of the audience. My mouth would tremble as I would begin to utter the first few words. I would sway back and forth or do some awkward things with my hands. I would avoid eye contact at all cost unless I find someone with a smiling face, then I would just stare at that person for the whole speech.

Have you experienced these things? It's not exactly the best experience to have is it? Fortunately, there is a way to overcome fear of public speaking. Just to give you my experience, I went from what I described above to one day being able to confidently get up in front of an audience. I'm sure there are plenty of ways of overcoming the fear of public speaking but what I will describe is what worked for me. Now for people with a severe fear of public speaking phobia, professional help may be needed.

How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking

1. Understanding the cause of the fear.

The first step in getting rid of your fear of speaking in public is to find out why it's a fear in the first place. The main reason is the fear of being embarrassed. This includes being laughed at, messing up, or doing anything foolish and having the audience judge you. Do you get nervous when you are in a room by yourself? Probably not. It's only when there are other people, people who might judge you or think badly of you, that causes you to get nervous usually.

Knowing why you have this fear of being in front of an audience will help you figure out what to do to overcome the fear. Once the fear is revealed, it can be conquered. It could also be that you had a bad experience in the past that triggers feeling of fear. Either way, for most people, it comes down to the fear of what others might think of them.

2. Change your mindset.

In order to overcome the fear of public speaking, you need to be able to change your mindset. When you can go from thinking about yourself and what the audience might think of you to thinking about the audience and how you can best deliver your message across, you will be able to conquer this fear.

3. Practice.

Although you may still get nervous even if you have done dozens of speeches, the more you do it, the easier it will get. When you practice, it's best to do it in front of a supporting group of people. This will not only make public speaking easier but it will also help you gain confidence. You can do things like join your local Toast Masters Club where you will get the chance to practice speaking in front of people who are all there to help you become a confident, well spoken speaker.

The way I was able to defeat my fear of speaking came in two phases. The first phase was the "I Don't Care" phase. In high school, in order to get an A in my speech class (we were required to take it), I had to join the speech and debate team. Since grades were really important to me at the time, I reluctantly joined even though at the time, I was still afraid of speaking in public.

Since my sole purpose was to get an A in the class, I didn't care about winning any debates or speech contests. Because of this attitude, when I got up in front of people to speak, I wasn't nervous. Even when I messed up and forgot what to say, I still didn't get nervous because I really didn't care since just joining the team was a guaranteed A for me.

Is this the best way, not care? Of course not but it helped me. This was the first phase. The next phase took place during my sales career as a trainer. I went from not caring to focusing on delivering my message across. My job was to motivate people. It's hard to do that if you focus on what people will think of you. So gradually, my focus went from thinking about myself, to not caring, and finally to thinking about my audience.

Instead of thinking, "What if I mess up?" I thought, "How can I best impact the people in my audience?" Those are two completely different questions. One question will put you in the mindset of fear while the other will put you in the mindset of power.

So overcoming fear of public speaking comes down to having the right mindset and practicing. Start practicing in front of supportive people. You can do this by joining Toast Masters. From there, as you get more comfortable, your focus will shift from you to the audience. Once your focus is on creating value for them, your fear of public speaking will be gone. Good luck.