So… how do I stop feeling nervous?

…the quick answer is –  I can’t just stop feeling nervous. So, a more useful question might be, do we want to get rid of nerves altogether?

I’m sure we can all recall a moment when we have had to stand up in front of a room of people, whether for a work presentation or maybe for a wedding speech. The hairs on our arms raise up, our heart is in our throat, our breathing rate goes for a jog….the list goes on.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could stop all of this and make our lives easier? If we did achieve that, then what might that speaker look like?..it could be… very robotic.

This is something that often comes up during our presentation skills course which I for one always encourage a conversation around. As trainers, the way we like to think about it is, that we don’t/can’t get rid of nerves, but what we can train ourselves to do is to help control them.

So how do we do this? This is where the advice can get very individual but here are a few of the key changes to consider:
Read more