Marisa Peer says stage fright comes from fearing judgment, but only you can judge yourself. She shares giving her father's eulogy imperfectly, then offers concrete fixes: be kind to yourself, use affirmations before speaking, and focus on sincerity over perfection.
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November 20, 2017
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The only person who can judge you is you. It is the most common fear in the Western world. But stage fright and the fear of speaking in public are actually about something else. They're about a fear of being judged. Most people can give a little speech to their kid, can read a little poem out to their wife or husband. When they have to do on stage, they have a different reaction because the feeling is, everyone's looking at me. What if I get it wrong? It's a bit like dancing in front of the mirror in your bedroom, but then having to stand on stage and do that on your own, you think, oh, no, people are going to judge me. So all of these fears are nothing more than the fear of being judged. And how to overcome that? It's actually very simple. The only person who can judge you is you. No one else can judge you. And when you understand that the words you say to yourself are the most important, you were able to give a speech. I recently had to give a eulogy at my father's funeral, and I wasn't quite sure how that would work. And I stood up, but it was gray, and I got very teary right at the end. But it didn't matter because I knew that nobody was judging me. They saw a daughter who loved her father and wanted to say something wonderful about him. So I didn't worry about tearing up, missing a word, stumbling on something, hurrying up the ending because it came from the heart. And whenever you speak, if you realize that what you're speaking about is interesting or fascinating or heartfelt, people aren't judging you. People aren't out there judging you. They haven't got time. They're far too busy judging themselves. Yes, if you're giving a talk in a presentation, the audience will look at you and will come to conclusions. But if you're warm and real and authentic, they don't care if you mess up, they don't care if you stumble over a world. In fact, they actually like it, because we like real, authentic people who are not scared of their own flaws. So if you have a fear of being judged, if you fear speaking in public, if you have that presentation anxiety, you can overcome it very easily by realizing that the person who really judges you is not in the audience, it's you. And if you judge yourself well, your whole life will change. And that's incredibly easy to do. Be nice to yourself, praise yourself, Go on stage going, I'm great at this. Come off and say, I did a great job. Even if you messed up a bit, you can still go. I did a great job. No one knows that you messed up. Except that you keep that to yourself and you'll just get better and better and better. On performance anxiety will disappear, I promise you.
