Fear of public speaking is one of the most widespread fears that many of us have today.

Some commenter's have even gone so far as to say that it's the number one fear that people have in the world.

If you are hampered by this fear and its effecting your life adversely, some of the tips below should help ease things and move things along for you.

1) Get perspective on fear

If we stop to think about it, the fear of looking foolish or stupid in front of a large crowd is one of the greatest fears that many of us carry. When we were younger it was easy for such a fear to be a very powerful influence for us and to control us as we depended to a large degree on the approval of others for our survival, namely our parents. But fast forward to today and most of us are self sufficient and do not need this approval anymore for survival. In fact you don't need any ones approval and it's safe to look foolish.

2) Let the fear move

Even after you realise that your fear may be ungrounded it doesn't necessarily mean that you're done with the issue of fear of public speaking and can get up there and perform. The fear that we have will remain stuck in us as long as we refuse to look at it and experience it. We have to be willing to tolerate the fear that we have inside us for now until it gets a chance to dissipate and move in our bodies so we can be free from it. So for now become the observer of your fear of public speaking and let it be there when it comes up. Doing so will start to lessen its energy and impact on you.

3) Practise makes perfect

Like anything in life, it is necessary for us to learn public speaking by immersion i.e. to actually do it in order to become good at it. As we practise more and more in front of people the fear that we have will gradually start to dissipate as we become more used to speaking in front of people. In essence we will have de-conditioned ourselves off the fear.