Tell me – how many times have you come across this advice?
“Feel the fear and do it anyway?”
It comes packaged in a variety of ways – reframe your fear as excitement, just ignore it, don’t let it hold you back – but essentially the message is to push through the discomfort and just do it.
It can be an inspiring message, for sure, and I don’t doubt that it’s said with the best of intentions… but I believe it’s misguided at best because it can take you further away from overcoming your fear.
Why is this? Why is pushing through anxiety such a bad idea?
3 reasons you should stop trying to manage your speaking anxiety Click To Tweet
1. Pushing through your fear means managing your speaking anxiety
When you fight against your fear of public speaking, you don’t eliminate it; you just push it to the side or push through it.
It’s still there, creating havoc in your body. It’s your dry mouth, your pounding heart, your sweaty pits, your shaky voice.
Instead of focusing 100% on what you want to say, you have to manage those symptoms. You have to use a big chunk of your energy to white-knuckle your way through your presentation.
This means you can’t be fully present and connected to your audience, and your talk won’t have the impact it could have had.
I don’t know about you, but that’s not the place I want to be when I speak in public. I want to feel relaxed, at ease, and in service of my audience. I believe if you had the choice, that’s what you’d want too.
2. Fear stops you from thinking clearly
When you’re scared, your body shuts down the part of your brain that’s higher functioning. Your mind goes blank, you can’t remember what you were going to say, you struggle to find the right words.
It makes sense—your body believes you’re in danger, so its priority is to get you out of the situation. It doesn’t care whether you can think or speak articulately; it needs you to be ready to run!
3. Your fear is trying to tell you something
The most important reason though, is the opportunity you miss to get rid of the fear. When you push through your anxiety, you miss the whole reason it’s there.
You see, fear is not the villain. It’s a messenger pointing to the things in your past that are asking to be resolved – things that led you to believe it wasn’t safe to speak.
By acknowledging its presence and understanding the underlying reasons behind it, you gain the power to heal and resolve these fears.
Stop managing your fear of public speaking & heal it instead
The bottom line is, anxiety is not a pleasant feeling, and it doesn’t have to be your constant companion.
I want to inspire you to embrace a new approach when it comes to speaking. Instead of forcing yourself to “feel the fear and do it anyway,” let’s take a different path.
Listen to your fear, not as an enemy to be suppressed, but as a messenger with a valuable message.
Imagine a world where you step onto the stage or hit “record” with a sense of calm, confidence, and ease. Wouldn’t that be incredible?
What’s your take on the saying, “feel the fear and do it anyway?” Has it worked for you? Let you down? Let me know in the comments below.
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