My Professor randomizes the selection of who gets to present. I was going last. I don’t know if it’s because I was so indulged in the other speeches that when I got up and started talking, I forgot EVERYTHING. My worst fear came to reality. My Professor told me to breathe; that did not help. She gave up seeing me whimpering and allowed me to look at my outline. I finally got it together and finished my speech while missing a good portion of what I was going to say. My Professor congratulated me for picking myself together. Still trying to mentally recover from this.
Edit: I don’t regret posting on here, thank for you the comments! I’ll use this as a learning experience for later speeches.
33 comments
Don’t worry it happens to everyone. People will forget about this in a couple of days.
I had some nerve-wracking experiences with public speaking in school, too. The other commenter’s right, people will forget soon and by the time you graduate you will probably be the only person in the world who remembers. Plus, only an asshole would judge you for panicking in public speaking class since public speaking is such a common fear. Most people who were watching you were not judging you.
Not letting you have notes is a major dick move. Not everyone has the same memory faculties, especially under pressure.
Oh no! That sounds like a nerve-wracking experience
It’s great that you were able to gather yourself and finish your speech
Take your time to recover, you got this!
For what it’s worth, it really is all about how you pick yourself back up. Your professor was right to compliment you for getting your feet under you and completing the presentation.
Everyone fucks up all the time, it’s what happens after that really says something about you, y’know? You did good.
Honestly sounds like an absolute win. You were able to face your fear and finish. It will get easier and easier.
If it helps, you had one of the worst possible outcomes…and you totally survived it. You pulled yourself together. An audience that didn’t know your planned material probably wouldn’t even notice a missed section 🤷🏽♀️ in the long run, the worst possible thing was kind of no big deal. It felt terrible then, but you made it through. Now you know how to survive it even easier if it ever happens again AND it’s way less likely to happen again because you know it’s survivable.
The trick now, is to try to frame it this way in your mind and not as a failure. You absolutely should be proud of yourself. You made it, and you’re stronger for the experience. And it’ll most likely never ever be that bad again.
Had it happened to me too and I worked so hard on the subject and was passionate, but somewhere along the line my brain went blank! And I swore I had practiced it long enough.
Thankfully my teacher helped me by asking me questions and I was able to answer her but still missed a chunk of info.
Eventually, I aced my last presentation. I didn’t trust my brain anymore so I had it outlined in my cards
You don’t go to a public speaking class because you are a great public speaker, you go to a public speaking class because you are terrified of public speaking and want to get over it.
This is A HUGE win. You got overwhelmed by the fear, but then you gathered yourself, got your emotions under control and finished the speech. The parts of the speech that you left out are not important. Your audience doesn’t know what you were going to speak about. And, at this point in your public speaking journey immaterial. The goal is to practice speaking, not to change your audience’s life.
If you keep going, and keep practicing, you will get better.
I would ask you to be gentle on yourself, and be immensely proud of the fact that you overcame your fear.
Well done.
What did it was? You had to go last. Probably if you’d went first or second or maybe even 5th. You’d have been great. It was just after watching all of the others. You’re anticipation of hoping you would do better than them or knowing that you would when you had finally got your chance. But when you got your chance stage fright set in. They’ll be other chances and I’m sure you’ll do just fine
Public speaking is a skill. You only get better the more you do it. No one is good at something the first time. Don’t even worry about it.
honestly i would feel pretty badass knowing that i pushed through and not gave up immediately
Your in public speaking class for a reason. You’ll get better.
This sounds like classic stage fright. It’s very normal. You could try joining a Toastmasters club if you want to get additional practice in a fun setting with strangers. It’s some peoples’ greatest fear, and really hard to break out the spiral of feeling like your brain was wiped clean, eyes staring at you, brain not working. Kudos for getting it done. We’ve all been there !
It happens. It’s especially scary that our grade is on the line when we give speeches. I think this fosters a culture of perfectionism in these kinds of classes. Perfection doesn’t exist, so you’ll always fall short with this kind of mindset.
One advice from a friend that really helped me in public speaking was to make my presentations as ridiculous and non serious as possible. Especially avoid topics on serious controversial issues as they’ll give you more anxiety. For example, doing a presentation on “Is soup a drink?” Or “The importance of daydreaming” is likely gonna be way more chill than doing a speech on gun control, social justice, or climate change
That sounds harrowing, but a public speaking class is kind of the perfect place to fumble! It’s to be expected that some of the students will have real struggles with speaking, and having voluntarily experienced your worst case scenario might offer you a feeling of “well, it can’t be any worse than that” the next time you find yourself talking to a crowd. Good luck & don’t be too discouraged. Public speaking a hard skill to learn, and undertaking things that scare you is even harder, but it’s worth it in the long run.
Whew you don’t know how hard this resonates for me. I’m a grad student and have literally had panic attacks and cried so many times after presentations. I know it sucks but trust me you’re not alone, it’s more common than you think!
I actually just defended my masters thesis today and had to pause and breathe when I got nervous but got through it so practice makes it more tolerable but I definitely get it <3
Public speaking is most people’s number one fear, with death as second. That’s why it’s offered as a course, not so much to become a fantastic orator, but to help folks get comfortable public speaking. All that is to say, do it again. And again. And again.
Just so you know you’re not alone–I’m a trial attorney. I speak in public often: judges, juries, etc. Buy during the pandemic, I was out of work for a couple of years and I got rusty. I got anxious about speaking, and feared stumbling over my words. I had my first in person hearing in years, and I BOMBED. You could feel the air get sucked out of the courtroom.
The next week I covered a hearing for a coworker and never looked back. Get back on the horse, I promise you it’ll get better.
that’s fine. Im pretty sure you did your best!The more you do it, the more confidence you gain. Public speaking is usually hard especially when you don’t do it often. you’ll never know one day you can overcome this fear and become a good speaker
This kind of blackout happened to me in my final oral exam in uni – or rather, I had the thought in my head but wasn’t able to turn it into a spoken sentence. My nerves made me mute. I started crying from stress. – They gave me a couple of minutes to breathe and calm down and let me speak when I was ready, and they still gave me a good mark in the end.
These things happen, professors are used to them, and they usually want your best.
Happenes to the best of us.
I think it’s more impressive that you recovered from this and finished your presentation! I’m sure you’ll look back and laugh at this memory. Good luck with your future presentations!
There’s a drug called beta blockers that your doctor may prescribe you. It is the anti-stage fright miracle drug. They are great for anxiety in general, don’t make you feel dopey, not addictive etc. check with your medical professional but this could be a solve if the thing that makes public speaking tough is stage fright.
It’s okay to bomb on stage sometimes. When have you gone home and thought today’s speaker was embarassing? Probably never. People forget and don’t care, if they do it doesn’t matter.
Practice bunch of times – like actually present out loud in private. You’ll get confident and also have backup phrases to fall back on.
Literally, memorize one liners for very beginning and each main topic switch.
Making phone calls and public speaking is one of the biggest fears amongst young adults. Don’t worry about it, it happens to everyone. Instead focus on how you can calm yourself down in these situations and do better the next time. Usually presenting becomes easier once you have something you are actually passionate about and want to share with the group you’re presenting for.
For me it helps to be a bit of a joker so that we lift the seriousness of the whole situations. Once everyone has laughed the ice has broken and we can continue.
Everyone starts at Public speaking like this. It’s normal. That’s the point of the class – to desensitize you from stuff like this. You’re doing great
If it’s any consolation, most of us become pretty nervous when having to speak to a large group of people. I found that, in my public speaking class, with each speech I felt more confident and by the end of the class I felt pretty good doing it and now it’s a useful skill in other classes. Everybody looks at their note cards once in awhile, it’s ok if you have to a couple times to remind yourself where you are in your speech. It will get easier!
No one ever is brilliant their first few attempts at doing something new. My first public speech, I “uhmmmed..” and forgot so many talking points, and I almost fainted when it was over. It was terrible, I bombed and it haunted me.
The next speech I had to give, I asked so many people around me that had so much experience giving public speeches and they all had various random tips that they swore by. I even got to ask a very prominent higher up at the university what their advice was regarding public speaking!
Ultimately, what worked for me was the haunting memory of my first ever attempt. I practice, practice, practice my speech until I can say it without looking at it written down. I practice and put thought into the exact way I would like to say a sentence. I’ll make eye contact between a few crowd members as I give my speech so it’s easier to focus only on a few people and ignore everyone else.
Public speaking is scary, but preparation helps reduce the anxiety.
Congratulations on making it through. The next time will be easier. And sometimes we perceive it to be worse than it actually was. You did it!
I have a friend who does extreme sports. One of the things he trains is snowboarding. He likes to do all these different tricks on obstacles and such. Once he made a trick and fell. He got up and tried the same trick again. He told me that he had to “do it or it would bother him later”.
You wrote:
>Still trying to mentally recover from this.
I think it bothers you that you did not show yourself fully. People got a glimpse, a demo, but not the full, awesome speech that you prepared. I think about this like an “unfinished task”. I feel that to mitigate this you could:
– deliver a new speech
– redo the old speech (not sure if possible)
– accept; As a perfectionist myself, I don’t like this option, but I think it is the most mature option. There many things we won’t do perfectly and we need to accept it.
The last point brings me to another thought: I think you did really good. As your professor said, you’ve managed to pick yourself together. This is great. Unpleasant, but great experience.
W professor!
One dude straight up passed out while presenting in my college public speaking course. He fell straight back and everything.
Could always be worse lol.
Don’t worry. After all the class is to make sure you overcome the fear and make you a better public speaker.
Something similar happened with me for a speech I was supposed to give at school.
Practicing in front of the mirror / recording myself speak helped tremendously