I still get nervous about public speaking.
But I’ve transformed my relationship with nervousness. It is now a friendly companion, not an evil stalker.
There are many aspects to this transformation, and there’s just one that I want to talk about in this post. And that’s what your nervousness says about your confidence.
In the past, I assumed that my nervousness meant that I wasn’t confident. My thinking went like this “If I was confident then surely I wouldn’t be nervous”.
Since I was always nervous, I made that mean I wasn’t confident.
Here’s what I’ve discovered:
Nervousness is not a sign of lack of confidence.
You can be nervous and confident at the same time.
How can nervousness and confidence co-exist?
Here’s a useful way to think about the distinction between nervousness and confidence.
Nervousness describes a set of physical symptoms such as your heart beating fast, butterflies in your tummy, and shaky hands. When we experience these physical symptoms we say “I’m feeling nervous”.
As your nervousness is just a set of feelings it doesn’t mean anything about your ability to give a great presentation.
Confidence, on the other hand, is the thought “I can do this!”. (The Latin root of the word “confidence” is “have full trust”.)
You become confident by doing the work of learning and practicing the skills required to give a great presentation.
Nervousness and confidence can co-exist because they are in different realms – nervousness is an emotion, confidence is a thought or belief.
So you can feel nervous, but be confident.
But, I would have argued in the past, don’t my thoughts and beliefs determine, or at least influence my emotions. So if I’m confident, why would I be nervous?
Why do we get nervous?
The human mind has evolved to think negatively. As Russ Harris puts it in “The Confidence Gap”, the number one job of the mind is to keep you from being killed.
The human mind considers public speaking an inherently risky activity. Public speaking opens you up to negative judgement and rejection by a group of people. In our distant evolutionary past, rejection by a group of people meant almost certain death. That’s because alone, we were at risk from predators and starvation, so we were dependent on a group for survival.
Taking this evolutionary perspective, fear of public speaking was a rational emotion. For most of us, in the privileged western world, public rejection no longer carries the risk of death, but we still suffer from the remnants of our evolutionary past.
Hence why so many of us continue to suffer some degree of nervousness whenever we make ourselves visible. Watch enough famous actors on Graham Norton’s couch talk about their craft, and you realize visibility and fear go hand in hand for nearly everyone. So whenever you are making yourself visible and vulnerable, open to judgement and criticism, this fear will show up.
The presence of nervousness doesn’t mean you’re not confident, it just means you’re human.
We can reframe the fear
If nervousness is the background accompaniment to public speaking, and may never reduce or disappear, what can we do?
First, expect and accept this “natural” nervousness as your constant companion when you’re speaking to a group. Fighting it makes it worse.
Second, we need a better word for it. Unfortunately, the English language lacks a diverse vocabulary for this set of feelings. All of the words we use – fear, anxiety and nervousness – have negative connotations.
Tara Mohr in her book “Playing Big” explains that the Hebrew Bible has a word for fear that is more expansive – yirah. Yirah has three meanings:
1. It is the feeling that overcomes us when we inhabit a larger space that we are used to.
2. It is the feeling we experience when we suddenly come into possession of considerable more energy than we had before.
3. It is what we feel in the presence of the divine.
Public speaking is a playing big activity. Could yirah describe those ongoing sensations that we have whenever we step into the spotlight?
Reframe your ongoing nervousness as yirah. It’s a positive sign that you’re seeking growth instead of stagnation, stepping outside of your comfort zone and making the most of your life.
This is a paradigm shift!
Yes, it was for me too!
I really found it helpful,thanks a lot for the insight.
This is a great post. Extremely useful. Thanks!
So glad you found it useful Ann
Going into an interview later today for my Dream Job! Definitely feeling nervous but also confident, so this was a timely post, thank you!
Hope the interview went well Bree. It’s great when you can recognize that you’re nervous and confident!
so this means we just need to dive into and face the tasks until we get not nervous and not to overthink of this fear or how we get so nervous? this will help?
Excellent perspective. Will use this on Sunday. Offered to do a few magic tricks for a friend’s son on his 6 th birthday. Now hear 40 kids are coming along with parents. (Over 80 people). Will let you know how it goes. Bring on the Yirah. Cheers Chris
Go well, Chris, with the magic tricks!
The 1st trick to master is the one where you turn nervousness into jirah! 🙂
Love this! So much of top performance is about perception and attitude.
Thanks for the book links too – will take a look, as they sound great.
You might also like this 4-minute video by Connie Dieken on tackling nerves, plus 6 tips of my own. (And a link to one of your own posts near the bottom!)
Thanks Craig, I’ll take a look at that video.
Very insightful tips Olivia, makes a lot of sense. Well done on such an insightful article 🙂
Hey Tipu, thank you 🙂
Thank you for the alternate word for nervousness–Yirah. Thank you so much.
Yes, it’s a useful word. Thanks to Tara Mohr for writing about it in her great book and Jewish religion and culture.
This was one of the best commentaries on dealing with nervousness I’ve read. I quoted it in a presentation skills course I teach and will continue to give your article credit. It immediately resonated with someone in my class struggling with the difference between nerves and confidence. Well done. Thanks you.
Thank you Judie, I really appreciate that.
Physiologically, our bodies react similarly to being nervous or excited — increased heart and breathing rates, higher blood pressure, dilated pupils, “butterflies” etc. Whether we are ‘nervous’ or ‘excited’, our bodies react the same way. The feelings are the same. Knowing this, when I get these physical reactions before speaking, I change my thinking from “I’m nervous” to “I’m excited”. From the Hebrew Book of Proverbs, “For as a man(or woman)thinks in his(her), so is he(she)” Pr 23:7. So, before you speak, change your thinking to “I’m excited”. It has served me well.
Absolutely Tom – this is a great tactic to reframe your feelings!