Jon Acuff is the man. He started out writing Stuff Christians Like, which is hilarious whether or not your a Christian (in fact I think a large percentage of his readers do not consider themselves Christians). He has his own blog too. He also recently released a book, Quitter, which I have on my shelf right now. It’s about leaving your job and finding your dream job, and is supposed to be pretty good. Today he had an excellent post about getting over your fear of public speaking.
Now that my blog looks like a Jon Acuff link farm, I’ll get more to the point. Jon says that in public speaking the big trick to getting over your fear is little victories. The first thing he focuses on is getting to a table to put his water down on. Then, he walks to the front of the stage and smiles. Then looks for someone to connect with. All little things, that when focused on, distract from the fear. Then, there’s a whole bunch of little victories. It drives momentum. Pretty soon, he’s rolling and things are good.
I’m finding recently that I need to do the same thing. When you look at the big picture of just about anything, it can get overwhelming. Starting something new, finding a job in a tough economy, or public speaking…they can seem very intimidating. Break it down. When you have small pieces to tackle, everything looks manageable. Make a list of goals, then some small steps towards achieving them. Just do one step a day. That will give you some momentum. Chances are you can tackle a couple of easy things at one shot. Then you’re on your way. The next day, take on one more…or three more. Before you know it, you’re well on your way to achieving something big.
Start here: leaders are learners. Start reading. Take 15 minutes a day to read something interesting and helpful. That’s it. When 15 minutes are done, put down the book. You’re done. Do that every day, and you’ll have an extra book read per month. Since most Americans have not read a book since graduation, you’re well ahead of the game. You’ll be surprised where that leads.
It’s all about the small victories.
