Have you ever feel fear in your life? Perhaps … fear of cockroach? flying? height?... I guess everyone does experiences fear. Michael Pritchard once said: "Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed." When you feel fearful, the feeling of fear is programmed into your nervous system and works like an instinct, holding you back from approaching things that you are facing where it tend to build up behavior of escape and avoidance.
Fellow toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen, let me share with you my three fears and how I overcome my fears. They are:
1. Fear of public speaking
2. Fear of social interaction
3. Fear of failure
Far above the fear of death and disease, comes the fear of standing in front of a crowd to speak. Yes, I have faced this problem since I was in primary school. I never dare myself to raise my hand and volunteer myself to answer a simple question posed by teachers. Whenever teachers ask for a volunteer out of 50 students in the class to answer his/her question, automatically I will sure bend my shoulder, eye contact with the floor instead of the teacher, and in my mind … I keep praying that “Don’t pick me! Don’t pick me! P-l-e-a-s-e ...”. Yes, being the physically smallest in the class, teachers hardly notice me and I was spared from answering those questions.
This fear of speaking has eroded me to a person who lacks confidence in delivering my message to others especially in front of a crowd.
Realizing that I need to overcome my fear to speak, I started to take initiative to participate in story telling contests and choral speaking club during my secondary school where I could practise to build up my confidence and courage to stand in front of the crowd whether in a group or alone and speak. It really does help me to overcome my fear. And of course, it is not enough, that’s why I have joined the toastmaster club, and this evening, I am here to present my 3rd speech so that I can further overcome my fear of speaking in front of public.
I Felt the Fear of Public Speaking And I Did It Anyway!
Let me now share my 2nd fear – the fear of social interaction.
Whenever my relatives, my father’s or my brother’s friends came to our house and visit us, there is always a little girl, hiding behind my mum, holding tight at her shirt and again … eye contact with the floor … or sometimes running into her bedroom and locking herself in her room, pretending to finish up her homework … that’s me. Instead of shyly stepping up to meet with people, I could feel deep inside me … a fear … holding me back to interact with people. The anxiety of being judged and evaluated by other people inhibited my interaction with others.
However, as time goes by, I start to realize that it was rude behavior not to respond positively when people approaches me to talk to me. Since then, I took the initiative to join clubs and societies which do involve interaction with people. Chinese Society, PBSM, Sin Chew Cadet Reporter, SLAD, Pesta Ang Pau … I made new friends from my schools and other schools as well. Together we organized activities, mingled with different team members, play and fool around with each other. After all, it was not only a matter about fun and learning but it is all about conquering the social phobia embedded within me.
I Felt the Fear of Interacting with People … And I Did It Anyway.
My third and not the least fear is the fear of failure.
Yes, most of the time I am afraid to try because I am afraid I will fail. And usually I will give myself numbers of well-reasoned thoughts such as “timing isn’t right”, “I doubt I could handle this” … and eventually, these rationales caused me to miss many opportunities to learn.
Buckminster Fuller once wrote, “Whatever humans have learned had to be learned as a consequence only of trial and error experience. Humans have learned only through mistakes.”
And this reminds me of Thomas Edison, who went through 1000 time of “mistakes” just to invent a light bulb. His success doesn’t come from his invention but his courage to take the risk of trial and error.
His real life story does impact on my perception of failure and help me overcome my fear. Whenever I fail, I will remind myself of Thomas Edison – no one will ever succeed if they never fail.
I Felt the Fear of Failure … I remembered the Words of people like Thomas Edison … And I Did It Anyway.
Fellow toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen,
Fear can be overcome only if you face it head on. Yes, I use to fear public speaking AND I am now standing before you now. I use to fear social interacting with people AND now I have made many friends especially friends like you. And the fear of failure AND I shall soon be graduating from this fine university with a degree in Chemical Engineering.
Let me close with this quote from Susan Jeffers: [ … P A U S E … B R E A T H E
D E E P L Y … A N D S A Y …]
FEEL THE FEAR, AND DO IT ANYWAY!
Mr/Ms Toastmaster.
