You can think of fear of crowds as a mild but annoying chronic disease. It is something that you cannot always get rid of completely, but you can definitely suppress it, overcome it and prevent it from harming the quality of life. To this end, it is important to treat it the way doctors treat a chronic disease: with routine treatment and monitoring that the symptoms do not worsen. Here are some tips that I recommend to apply regularly after the end of the course.
A. make sure to practice
Public speaking is a skill, and like any skill it is important to practice it. By practicing, you can retain the acquired tools (planning chapter headings, time management, reading the audience's body language, etc.). Effective practice allows not only to retain the tools of the course, but even to continue to improve.
Of course, the skill, and the confidence that the mastery of the skill gives, enable a more effective dealing with the fear of the crowd. Thus practice strengthens the control of the fear of the crowd.
How do you get used to it? Everywhere (List of places to practice). Family meals, team meetings, in a synagogue, etc. Think in advance about something you want to say, and then say it in front of everyone. If you want a more professional practice, you can join one from the refresher sessions which I edit every month.
B. ask for feedback
Receiving feedback allows you to continue to improve your speaking ability. Although it does not directly contribute to overcoming crowd fear, it creates a habit of self-measurement, and also, in people with particularly acute self-criticism, provides a balance to overly lethal self-feedback.
How to ask for feedback? in advance, and in detail. It is important to ask for feedback from someone whose discernment you trust, and it is important to ask for feedback before the speech. You should ask him to write down what you said and his opinion on what you said. If you are giving a presentation or a long lecture, I recommend also asking for his assessment of the audience's level of attention during that section.
It is important to emphasize - most people do not know how to give good feedback. Therefore, it is recommended to take all feedback with a grain of salt. For the same reason it is recommended to vary and ask for feedback each time from someone else.
third. Avoid bad 'mantra'
Many people who suffer from a fear of crowds tend to end their standing in front of a crowd with an annoyed expression of 'you were screwed again'. It helps them emotionally to lower expectations from the audience and not be disappointed. The problem is that when you do it all the time it becomes a mantra - a harmful mantra.
Therefore it is better to decide that when finishing a speech you should concentrate on something positive. It could be successfully meeting the time frame, or a successful example that the audience liked, or a smile on the boss's face. It doesn't really matter what, but to choose a few positive things and concentrate on them the second you finish talking and sit down.
d. Don't ignore crises
Even people who have managed to overcome their fear of crowds sometimes have 'attacks' of anxiety. Usually these are one-off cases before a big presentation, or after a speech that didn't go well, and they pass as they came.
At the same time, because of the circular nature of fear of the crowd (fear causes stress, the stress impairs function, the decrease in function causes a feeling of failure, the failure increases the fear the next time), such one-time episodes may deteriorate into a return to fear of the crowd. That is why it is important to treat immediately in any case of the return of the feeling of anxiety.
In the Air Force, it is customary that any pilot who abandons a plane must leave for flight as soon as he lands on the ground, so that there is no trauma. The same is true here as well - if you have felt an attack of public fear it is important to find a nearby opportunity, find an audience and speak in front of them. You can also contact us and join a class in one of the courses to practice (here The list of upcoming meetings).