Conquering the mountain: The fear of public speaking

Public Speaking for a lot of people like for me is one of the things I find most difficult to do. Standing in front of a crowd to put out my thoughts has always been a hard task. Even though I've done that a couple of times in school, it still poses as one of the challenging obstacles I face. I find it very difficult to muster the courage to speak confidently before an audience.

Anytime I think of addressing a group of people, I get nervous and fumble. I fear I will stumble over my words, forget what I want to say, make mistakes and get judged. As I move towards the stage, I begin to sweat, get anxious and begin to shake. I fear I would not be able to communicate my thoughts properly as I should; I fear I will fail or get embarrassed as I mount the stage.

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Unfortunately, this hurdle has become a stumbling block to many achievements of mine. I recall during a time in Secondary School where we had to go for prefect ship positions. I was nominated to go in for the position of a sports prefect. I wanted to go too but because they told me I'd have to present a manifesto to the whole school, I backed down at once.

There was this one time in school I was called on to make a presentation for a group work in class. I had really prepared and was ready, or so I thought. I told myself I was going to do it since during that time I told myself I was going to overcome my fears. As I went in front of the class, my heart started beating and I was very nervous. I still mustered courage to do the presentation. After the presentation, my friend texted me to ask me why I was shouting at them the whole time.

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I got so embarrassed and told him it was because I was nervous. During that presentation, I remember I shouted at another guy for asking a question. So, after my friend told me this, I got sad and told myself, that was it for presentations for me and that I wasn't going to do any again. From that moment, the fear of public speaking gripped me tightly.

As time went on, I realized this fear was a hinderance to my academic and professional growth and I needed to work on it.
I've decided to not feel too bad about criticisms and also partake actively in class since I'm a student; to ask more questions and also answer questions when asked.

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I'm also trying to accept that, failing is a part of success and it's not so bad to fail if I'm going to learn from it and bounce back.
Public speaking might be a daunting task but not an insurmountable one. From now on, I've decided that through resilience, practice and boldness, I will conquer this fear.