How to Overcome Fear and Succeed: Informative Speech Essay

• General purpose: To describe
• Specific purpose: To teach my listeners the method I use to speak confidently in public and learn new skills.
• Central idea: Trying to attain perfection and fearing mistakes will only make you commit more errors, even in trivial situations. To succeed and attain confidence, one needs to overcome their fear and focus on being good, not perfect.

Introduction

Attention Material

1. Hook: What comes to your mind when you are told to present in public?
2. Many people are afraid of speaking publicly and making mistakes while doing so, believing that people will notice and think ill of the speaker’s competence.
3. WIIFM? By using my method, students can learn to manage their fear of public speaking. They will become able to use English excellently and deliver their points in a manner that resonates with the audience.

Orientation Material

1. Public speaking is a stressful affair since one is constantly afraid of failing in front of a crowd of people.
2. People obsess over perfection and criticize themselves unjustly for every mistake they make while speaking (Grieve, 2019)
3. You do not need to be perfect (Preview main points) I was once an international student who also strived for perfection until this tendency led me to freeze up during a self-introduction, following which I learned that it is all right to feel scared and make mistakes and overcame my fear.

(Transition: Let me share my story …)

Body

As an international student, I wanted to perfect my English

1. I started my first class as an international student wanting only to master English.
2. To me, speaking English perfectly meant never making any mistakes (DiRiesta, 2018).
3. However, this desire only led me to make even more mistakes instead of reducing their number.

(Transition: But how did it do that?)

In a practical situation, I froze up and was unable to speak a single word.

1. At one point, I was asked to introduce myself in front of my classmates.
2. My brain went blank, my heart started racing, and I kept quiet for seconds.
3. I forgot every single word in English because I was focused on not making mistakes.

I learned that it’s OK to make mlistakes.

1. As long as the message is delivered, people are willing to overlook smaller mistakes (Humphrey, 2017).
2. Feeling scared is OK, and one should strive to be good, not perfect.
3. I still feel fear, but it motivates me to succeed by overcoming it instead of stopping me from functioning.

Conclusion

Summary

1. Being able to make mistakes and go on gives you more control over how your speech occurs. As a result, you can deliver the message successfully and create an excellent speech despite the problems.
2. In these circumstances, fear motivates you to be better and persevere through difficulties instead of collapsing under their weight. As such, it is healthy to acknowledge it so that it may be overcome.

Clincher

The things that I have learned from my past failures at public speaking have enabled me to deliver this talk with confidence. If you take what I said to heart, you, too, will be able to speak publicly without making the mistakes that I have made.

References

DiResta, D. (2018). Knockout presentations: How to deliver your message with power, punch, and pizzazz. Morgan James Publishing.

Grieve, R. (2019). Stand up and be heard: Taking the fear out of public speaking at university. SAGE Publications.

Humphrey, J. (2017). Impromptu: Leading in the moment. Wiley.