Personal Narrative: Why I Never Afraid To Speak

Communication apprehension has played a huge role on my life. Growing up I thought I was a social butterfly, not worrying about what people thought about me or how they viewed me. I had some great friends growing up that were always supportive of me. We would hang out all the time and meet new people and just have fun. It wasn’t until I was a little bit older that I learned of the fear of public speaking.

The fear of public speaking can prevent people from attending events that focus on individual attention and can limit the opportunities required for the progress of their career. According to Pillay (2016), “Fear is your brain's alarm system that is triggered by sudden motions, sounds, or anything that could threaten your safety or survival (para, 2). Fear is not always bad. Primitive reaction to fear is to either take flight, meaning avoid the situation that causes fear or to fight, meaning stay and face the situation to the best of one’s ability. There are mainly two reasons why people fear speaking, first is when they are not prepared and second is that are too concerned about themselves

When I spoke, I would find myself having to repeat what I said multiple times before someone would understand what I was saying. For me, speaking was like trying to unknot a horrible, stiff, matted rope, practically impossible. Talking became my worst fear.

I have been afraid to express my disagreement before. One reason why I have felt that way is that I have been proven wrong before. The embarrassment that I felt made me think twice about sharing my opinion. Since then, I have learned to take being proven wrong as a learning experience and thinking twice before stating my stance has helped me prepare my argument. I think that many other people have been proven wrong or are afraid of being

Fear is something we all have but for some it is hard to express this emotion

You should not be afraid to say what you believe in. Even if it can be the most controversial saying that might ever be said, you would still be sticking up for what you believe in. Through Kanye’s “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” I had realized that if no one had ever spoke up about any subject, the world would succumb into chaos as everyone would let people do whatever they want and no

I think that I have come passed a difficult weakness of mine; it used to be hard for me to voice my opinion or speak up. Whenever asked about my views on a certain topic I would always try to stay neutral to try to not stand out. Whenever something bothered me I wouldn’t say anything to avoid hurting someones feelings.In the end this would prove useless and still either render my opinion worthless or it would make me or someone else uncomfortable. That is why over time I have learned that what defines you is what you think. What made me start to think that I should speak up more is one time I read something and it said that suffering in silence will only hurt you. This made me realize that when something bothered me I should speak up because

I think we must accept that fear or so much concern about what other people say might only imprison us in our own dwelling and it will be the hindrance in expressing ourselves. We should understand that there are times when we must decide whether we will go with the crowd or stand firm on our decisions against the crowd no matter what are the consequences.

Although this article is relevant to my current situation of my fear of public speaking, overall I think my case have both some similarities. My biggest symptom is that when I go to speak publically my mind rushes. Instead of thinking clearly about what I am going to say next, I get into my own head and start thinking about everything down the line as well as my audience and the fact that I might mess up or get even more nervous. The article points out that the fear of public speaking usually come from a “Traumatic experience” with your first time public speaking. Although it was not my first time and traumatic might be a bit of an overstatement, I think this statement rings true. Pinpointing my fear comes after an early presentation senior

As a child I’ve always been told to open up my mouth and say how I feel. Never to disappear in the crowd and lose my voice. There are many times where I have been in conversations and felt like my opinion didn’t matter so I didn’t say anything. Only later to find that the thought I kept to myself had been very relevant, but said by someone else. The fear of being shut down can be so great at times, which is why I am glad that I had been taught to speak my mind from such a young age.

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt” (Lincoln). Lincoln could not have said it better. In today’s society everything people say is judged harshly by everyone. A person could say one thing that can have multiple meanings and the first thing that comes to mind from other nowadays is negativity. Which is why many choose to stay quiet rather than say they might regret later. Quiet people nowadays are portrayed as weird, odd, dumb, or anti-social just because a person is quiet does not imply anything about their character. Society is too quick on labeling individuals on how they act in a matter of seconds, that is has become a natural reaction to critique someone based on something

Those are two sentences I have heard a countless amount of times in my life. Growing up I was always extremely shy. My biggest fears included, but were not limited to: ordering food, buying items at a store, telling people my name, and talking to strangers. All the way through middle school I struggled with making friends simply because I was too shy to talk to anyone. Entering high school, that changed. In my freshman Ag class, my teacher made us remember the FFA creed, five long paragraphs, saying one a week in front of the entire class seemed impossible to all of us. Everyone in the class was worried about the length, but I was worried about looking stupid in front of everyone. My teacher allowed several

“Stand up and face your fears, or they will defeat you,” once said LL Cool J. Unequivocally, this is extremely accurate, and one can name many events that pertain to this topic. Personally, I believe that it is important to speak your beliefs and share your opinions.

“What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written.”- Jacques Derrida. I agree with this quote because some people don’t know how to express themselves by speech, they express themselves with writing. This quote is saying that what you can’t say aloud you should write instead of just literally saying it. For instance, when I have to tell my mom something really important I write a letter. I can't really tell her in person because I don't know how to express myself, that well. It's like I have fear of speaking

I used the search engine Google with the search term “public speaking fear” and it brought up a great deal of interesting websites pertaining to public speaking. The first one I decided to peruse was 5 Tips to Reduce the Fear of Public Speaking on Psychology Today’s website. I learned that public speaking is the number one fear in America, while the fear of death is second in line. This means that we’re more afraid of speaking in public than we are of dying. I also learned five tips on how to reduce public speaking nervousness.