When Your Mind Goes Blank
What to be done when your mind goes blank? Mind Blanking is the most common phenomenon among humans. While the world is adapting technically advanced means of communications, still are the some for whom the biggest fear is to address the public. For them, the fear of presentation overweighs the fear of death. Average professionals rank the fear of public speaking, commonly called Glossophobia higher than the fear of death. The fear could hurt your professional or personal career. For business or personal enhancements, it’s really important to get your points across.
Public speaking fear is very real. Public speaking can cause fear and anxiety to even pro and confident professionals. Does the fear of public speaking evoke fear, anxiety, sweat, and gets your heart pounding? You are likely suffering Glossophobia – the biggest fear of public speaking.
During the PowerPoint presentation, people often feel their minds and bodies in different places. Individuals get distracted; their mind seems to be somewhere else; attention seems to be disconnected from perception. This mental state is referred to as mind blanking. The state represents the biggest decoupling of perception and awareness, in which attention fails to redirect any stimuli into conscious awareness. Often you might have noticed individuals struggling with their minds going blank while on a conversation.
Has It Ever Happened with You?
You may be super prepared for an auspicious day. You need to prepare a speech. Doing that you spend hours creating an engaging presentation and rehearse it until you are through solid. You have spared weeks and weeks planning, practicing this amazing speech. One the day of the presentation, you are highly energized.
You start amazingly, the audience loves it and then comes ‘’Oh No’’ moment, when you realize you have completely forgotten what you need to say next. Your mind goes completely blank. At this point, your heartbeat starts racing, and beads of sweat start running down your face. How could this have happened to you? You have thoroughly revised. Even memorized it well. Don’t get anxious this has happened to even some of the great orators. At public speaking, even some of the greatest presenter goes blank. The only difference it makes is they handle the situation like pros. Avoiding anxieties and panicking they try some of the tactics discussed here below:
- Tell Your Audience Your Mind Gone Blank: Usually when presenter goes through a stage of mind-blanking. They often try tactics to overcome it or misguide the audience. The biggest consequence of doing so is your audience starts judging your skills based on it. Presenter fears confronting it among the audience as they will judge harshly, which can be humiliating. It makes the presenter more anxious and self-locked within the thoughts. Confront the state with a smile or with a joke. It can make you more engaged with your audience.
- Refer Your Notes:Even a well-memorized content fades away in mind blanking. Setting up stage is the most prominent task in a presentation. Arrange notes, manuals as a reference. Even you are performing without a podium, keep your notes nearby – for an outline.
- Take Audience Assistance: Give an out of the theme example or facts which takes your audience out of the track. Don’t hesitate, ask your audience, where was I? Making your audience part of your presentation makes the project more engaging and interesting.
- Say Something:Silence can even worsen the situation. Don’t be silent for long. The longer you be silent, the more the anxiety will grow. Say something relative to your presentation theme, speech, audience, or occasion. As you begin to speak, the more likely your memory will kick into gear.
- Back-Up:Back Ups works best when your mind goes blank. Recall your points you just finished making. Repeating previous points like retracing points, steps before taking a leap gives to momentum and time to carry forward.
- Use Techniques to Reduce Anxieties: The biggest reason why people go blank while the presentation is anxieties. Nervousness is what freezes your thought. If you succeed in calming down yourself, you can get your thoughts rolling again. Here are some ways which can assist you in reducing anxieties:
- Focus Outside the Theme of the Presentation: When we get anxious, we often get locked within the thoughts in our minds. Don’t get caught up within your thoughts in your minds; instead, observe your surroundings. Best way to do is to analyze the seating’s, focus on how to tune your conversations or something which diverts your mind from the presentation theme.
- Another best way to reduce anxiety is to take a few times, take a few deep calming breaths, or drink water. As you do it exaggeratedly, it feels natural.
- Perfectionism:Perfection doesn’t go well with every presenter. It’s based on the illusion that hard work can eliminate mistakes, foolishness, and losing control. Don’t focus on giving a flawless presentation; instead, try to serve the audience with the best of your ability.
- Reduce Social Anxieties:If you become more comfortable with social meeting that makes you anxious, the less are the chance of your mind to go blank. Visit lectures, seminar, attend the meeting, projects which helps you to deal with shyness, insecurities, and anxiety.
- It’s What the Information Matters: Your mind is obvious to go blank when you try to memorize the points of your presentation. Focus on communicating the right information rather than the exact words.
- Live Your Story: You are unlikely to forget what you have experienced. You can’t forget your international trip, how you met your partner. Memory works best when you speak about what you have witnessed. So, don’t be just a speaker of your presentation. Live your presentation, think yourself as a storyteller who’s going to be a part of a story.
As long as you practice more, you will be able to overcome the fear of mind-blanking. Hopefully, this article might have helped you to reduce the stress of public speaking
