When I was twelve, my family and I moved to rural France.

I started in a French school in March of 1993 knowing zero French.

That first day of school was by far the most frightening day of my life.

I remember sitting on the steps that went up to the headmaster’s office feeling completely petrified, looking down at all the children in the playground. I couldn’t understand what they were saying but I knew they were talking about me and my brother.

It wasn’t often you got new pupils in the school we were in, and much less a couple of English boys, one wearing a Guns ‘n Roses t shirt.

It was the kind of fear that’s so intense that you look everywhere for somewhere to run, but realise that there is nowhere to run.

But, like most things, the scariest things turn out to be the best experiences in life. My time in France was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

But why was I actually scared?

What was I scared of?

There wasn’t any obvious physical danger that could hurt me.

Well, like most fears, the ones that are really scary often don’t have anything to do with physical danger or a threat of death.

The fears that are always at the top of the list of biggest fears tend to be social fears.

I’m lucky, I never have nightmares. But listening to others talk about theirs, nightmares mostly tend to be social too.

You’re giving a presentation and you forget your script and everyone laughs…

You stand up in a meeting to say something and realise that you are completely naked…

We humans are scared of what others think of us. After all, we’re social animals and being part of a group is central to our way of thinking and being.

Almost everything we do we do thinking about the group we belong to, our position in the group, or what others in the group will think of us.

We worry about these things a lot.

Probably too much.

The things that humans are most scared of are not things that could hurt us, but rather things that can get us expulsed from a group.

Some of these fears are real, but the vast majority are not.

Most simply become unnecessary obstacles.

This leads to an ugly truth.

Our fears prevent us from doing what we really want to do.

I want to tell you a little story today. A conversation that I had very recently with a student about identifying weaknesses. It turns out that identifying them is not as easy as you think…

“So, Sara, what do you think your weakness is?”

She answered immediately, “Speaking in English”.

“What problem do you have with speaking in English?”

“Well”, she continued, “I find it difficult to get the words out of my mouth, particularly in meetings. I worry that people will ask me questions and I won’t be able to answer them, so I don’t speak. I also worry that people will hear my mistakes and think my English level is low”.

Are you thinking what I was thinking?

Right, her weakness isn’t actually speaking. It’s something a little deeper.

In fact, it’s the same weakness that many language learners have. And the same weakness that a large chunk of the population has: a fear of what others think of us.

When many people say that their weakness is speaking, what they’re really saying is that.

Fear of what others will think of them.

That fear stops them from speaking.

Various studies have shown that public speaking is consistently first or second in rankings of biggest fears. It’s a natural fear, and it reflects the fact that we humans are group animals, and the group’s opinion of us is very important to us.

So the advice I gave Sara was not to speak more. She knows she needs to speak more, but fear is stopping her.

The best thing that Sara can do is overcome her fear. When she can do that, then she can really improve her speaking skills. Until she does that, her fear of speaking will always stop her from improving.

So what can she do?

Being brave doesn’t mean you don’t feel scared. It means you don’t allow fear to stop you.

But of course, you can’t say, “Just be brave!”, and that’s it.

That doesn’t work.

What you can do, though, is plan those scary moments so that you can anticipate them and they’ll be easier to manage and do. Often, it’s not the action itself which is really scary. The scary thing is that you didn’t expect it so you couldn’t plan it.

Well, if you plan it, that problem disappears.

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Here’s what you can do.

For Sara, the really scary thing was speaking in a meeting. It was the thought of someone asking her a question and her not being able to answer them. It was the thought of her needing to say something in front of everyone.

What I told her to do was plan and decide to say something in every meeting. I told her to make a conscious decision to speak in the meeting no matter what.

When you plan to do this, it puts the control in your hands. When you decide to do something, you control the situation. This makes you feel more confident and less worried.

So before every meeting that she has now, she promises to herself that she will say one thing in the meeting and plans what she will say. Anything, but something.

During the first week, every time she said something in a meeting, it gave her a little bit more confidence.

After a week of saying one thing per meeting, she started to feel much more confident.

So she planned to say one thing and ask one question in every meeting.

And that is what she is doing now, and she has already made great progress in just one week in overcoming her fear. She has realised that her fear was preventing her from improving. She also realised that she had complete control over her fear.

Her goal is to be an active member of the meeting and contribute as much as she would if the meeting were in Spanish.

I have no doubt that she will do exactly that.

Now when I say scared of speaking English, I don’t necessarily mean that you are trembling and unable to speak. I think 90% of English learners have this fear, but on different levels. Some do tremble and physically cannot speak, but most don’t. Most simply don’t feel comfortable or say “I don’t really like speaking in front of others in English” or “I prefer to let others speak”, but they wouldn’t say they are scared.

But if a thought is stopping you from speaking as much as you should, then that’s fear, and you should work on improving it.

When you work on improving it, your fear may not disappear. But taking the decision to do something about it will stop your fears from dictating you and your progress, and the things that caused you fear before become much more manageable and your confidence will grow exponentially.

Take control of your fears and worries; don’t let them control you.

Useful language

• When we talk about memories of actions, we say I remember + gerund / noun.

I remember sitting on the steps…

I remember meeting her a few years ago.

I vividly remember my first day of school.

• To talk about our fears we say to be scared of + noun / gerund.

When I was a child I was scared of spiders.

My brother was scared of speaking in front of other people.

• The phrasal verb turn out describes an unexpected result.

We thought the film was going to be boring, but it turned out to be quite exciting.

It turns out that she knew the truth the whole time.

The party turned out to be a lot of fun.

The accusations turned out to be false.

Like most things, the scariest things turn out to be the best experiences in life.

• Just + imperative is used to give advice that you think is obvious or will give immediate results.

If you think he’s upset, just speak to him about it.

“Just Do It!”