Stage fright: How to overcome your self-criticism and self-doubt

If you are like many people who suffer stage fright, your fear of public speaking is not the result of a critical audience. You don't receive boos and jeers - in fact, your audience is quite supportive.

Instead, the criticism comes from within. There's a voice in your head which berates you for any and every perceived mistake in your presentation.

Even if your audiences applauds your presentations, and friends and colleagues cheer you on, it makes no difference. You just don't feel your presentation is ever good enough.

But this incessant self-doubt and self-criticism has its roots in a surprisingly positive aspect of their personality: your problem solving skills.

Most people can solve problems to a greater or lesser degree. But some people are exceptionally good at this. They are the ones who habitually try to fix things around their home rather than call a handyman. They're the ones who catch mistakes. They are the guardians of quality, who ensure that gaps are filled, and that things that have gone off the rails are brought back on track.

This is clearly an excellent talent, because others can always count on them to ensure that standards are met 100%. Without people with a problem solving mindset, many things would be left half-done, be mediocre. It's a mindset to be celebrated.

The minds of compulsive problem solvers are attracted to problems like a magnet, and they are energised at the prospect of leaping in and fixing them. They can't wait to spot gaps so they can fill them. They have a natural radar that allows them to see shortcomings a mile away.

But the problem is that these highly talented people are sometimes so good at spotting gaps and shortcomings, that they see nothing but gaps and shortcomings. And not just in projects or objects, but in other people, too. They might come across as somewhat critical, nit-picking the habits, words or actions of others, although their motivation is usually pure. They would just like everything to be perfect.

When it comes to presentations, they would like themselves to be perfect. They spot gaps and shortcomings in their presentations. They see problems in how they look, how they sound. They see shortcomings in their slides and videos and other presentation materials, they feel they're not good enough to be on stage. When their problem solving skills are unbridled, and the volume on their criticism is turned up so loud, that's when they are drowned out by their own self-criticism.

If this describes you, the first thing to do is to realise that an outsized, overgrown problem solving skill is itself a problem if it starts to impact your performance.

You credit your focus on continual improvement for getting you to be where you are today, always growing, always improving. But if striving for perfection is impacting your public speaking performance, you might like to consider whether it is your perfectionism that is the shortcoming that keeps you from being perfect.

In our communications coaching workshop we discuss tactical ways to address this.