Realise Your Fear
By Catherine Gray |
We all have certain little fears that keep us from doing what it is we really want to do. Many fears hold us back: the fear of rejection, loneliness, the fear of failure and sometimes even the fear of success can prevent us from living up to our potentials. But for someone with their heart set on a career as an advocate, the worst fear to realise is a fear of public speaking.
My fear of public speaking is not an irrational one, I am somewhat reluctant to say. The painful truth is that an incident occurred which kick-started my phobia. It was my second year of my LLB and I had just taken on the role of Events Coordinator with the Open University Law Society. After much work, I had set up the first ever OU moot. I had never been to one of these student-populated mock appeal trials before, but I had done my research and was sure I had organised it well.
Only there was a problem…I was short one advocate. Loathful to see my hard work destroyed before ever seeing the light of day, I decided to take on the position of mooter along with my previous role as Mistress of the Moot.
I spent hours researching my part of the question, I did everything the way I should have done. But I ran short of time and needless to say, my priority was the event rather than my particular speech. When it came to my turn to talk, my mind blanked. I had written notes, but had no speech to follow. I um-ed and I ah-ed and I shuffled my papers as if that would help me. I murmured ‘My apologies, My Lady,’ about a million times but in the end spent 15 minutes of esteemdevouring Hell before saying, “And you should find against the appellant because he is a very bad man!”
Not that I remember saying that, mind you, as my brain was a free agent by then. But the point is I know of that which I speak.
Public speaking is frightening, there is no doubt about that. Every time I have to deliver a speech or a presentation, I still feel the tell-tale butterflies using my stomach as a meadow-smorgasbord. But I have learned that fear is there for a purpose, many purposes in fact.
I encountered fear when I was at that fateful moot, as a sign that I was ill-prepared.
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After that fiasco I was adamant that I would never put myself in such a gutwrenching position again. My next moot was therefore much better, my preparation was much more thorough.
My nerves were still present, but they were not controlling my performance any more, I was. It is the adrenalin that causes the butterflies, the coldness in our extremities, the shaking. But it also works with us. With proper preparation, the nervousness that we feel actually heightens our senses, quickens our responses and even improves our performances. The thing to remember is that the adrenalin can help, but it assists only; it is not a replacement for preparation. Without good preparation, adrenalin is destructive making us forget our lines, stammer, stutter, shake, and sweat allowing the fear, the anxiety, surrounding public speaking to take over.
The fear is also important to help people decide where their ambitions lie. If I had allowed my fear to linger, I would be looking at another career right now. And whilst I know I would enjoy a career in law no matter what the title, I feel my true calling is the Bar; so I worked past the fear. But some people cannot or do not want to conquer their fears. Fear differentiates between us so that our decisions may be made easier or our determination may be made stronger. If you know what you want, fear can never prevent you from attaining it.
One of the things I did to get over my fear was to join my local speaker's club. I found it an interesting experience. I had spent so many nights during my LLB researching and writing essays and answers to problem questions that I found writing speeches to actually be relaxing. I was able to write about anything I wanted to write about, not just legal matters but absolutely anything I chose to write about (almost). But the real test for me was not the writing, I realised, it was the speaking. My first speech, as many first speeches at a speaker's club, was about myself. (It makes writing it very easy indeed.) But the morning of the speech I felt ill. The fear had returned and had brought with it a friend: dread. I felt the muscles in my body tighten. At no point during the day did I find any relaxation; I was stressed from the very beginning. But that evening, I stood up in front of the entire speaker's club and I spoke. And two weeks later, I did it again. That is the real secret to public speaking along with preparation: Practice. The more you do, the easier it gets. So I will keep practising, until I am called to the Bar and get to do it for real. Fear will not conquer me.
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