I Hate My Shaking Voice

I couldn't remember how nervous I am the very first time I had to talk in front of a crowd which maybe it was years ago when I was in primary school, but I'm pretty sure that I was very nervous to the point that I peed myself. Or maybe I wasn't nervous at all but I talked nonsense playfully instead. 

Despite these speculations, I was among the top public speaker during my primary school days. I entered and won several storytelling competitions and I joined various groups such as choir and choral speaking. The same goes when I entered high school, I was a member of the school debate team and we won a few competitions. Being that good, I'm sure I entered such competitions with confidence, fluent in talking about my points and most importantly, my voice wasn't shaking one bit.

And then came the time I entered university life. As I mentioned before here, I wasn't an excellent student during my study days, I'm far from average. I remembered having very low self-esteem because of my lacking design skills compared to other students during a presentation and the fierce lecturers weren't helping at all. 

The worry that I might say something wrong or how the crowd, especially the lecturers, might condemn my presentation, my voice started shaking. The whole 4 years of my study days, I have shaking voice every time I did a presentation in front of a crowd and I felt awful when I ended the presentation because I knew I could do better. Since then, I think I have a problem, a fear of presenting in front of a crowd.

Then I started working life but I never had a problem with my voice during job interviews because it's only a Q&A session and there are only a few panels, the same goes when I had my MUET test. So everything was perfect, I thought I would never have to do presentations anymore. Little did I know, the moment I accepted the offer of my current job, I would have to face my fear again.

The was one time I had to replace my boss, presenting paperwork to the higher-ups. I knew the moment I hold the mic that my voice would shake. I started to tremble and there goes my shaking voice through the loud and clear mic. Fortunately, it wasn't long, maybe a few minutes and then my voice was back to normal. My colleague assured me that the higher-ups weren't disturbed by my shaking voice during the presentation and I felt relieved. 

From that moment, I was hoping that I would never do any presentations again but there goes my luck. This coming week, I had to replace my boss, again, presenting a module to students from a university who are coming to visit the company. The thing is, there would be a total of 4 lecturers and 66 students, the biggest crowd I ever had and the so-called conference would be held in a lecture hall. I started to tremble the moment I heard the news and I couldn't stop practising until today.

Wish me luck guys, and I would appreciate it if you guys have tips on how to control my shaking voice, just drop them in the comment below. Help me!

Till then,

Lya.