Cognitive Reconstructing

The Hopes That I Have

Rebekah Pryor
Los Medanos College

Cognitive Reconstructing

The Hopes That I Have

When I think of public speaking my blood runs cold, I think immediately of how I am going
to fail and that is my biggest fear. In the book Public speaking by Engleberg and Daly, James C.
McCroskey explains fear of failure as follows: Fear of a negative evaluation is the number-one
cause of communication anxiety. When you focus on your thoughts, on the possibility of failure,
you are more likely to fail. (McCroskey, 2012).
In the culture that we live in today, its excessively evident that if you fail at something people
are not easily forgiving. If someone famous does something rash in public there are going to be
people that judge and hate on that person. It is very hard to think about what people will say
when I am in the position of public speaking. The pressure of what people are going to think
about me exponentially adds to my fears of public speaking. My assumptions of public speaking
definitely feed my fears. I say to myself, What are people going to think?, They are going to
judge me., They arent going to like my speech., I am going to fail., I will never get
better. Sadly, these are the lies that I tell myself. They are feeding into my fears of public
speaking and they are false. There is no possible way to know exactly what people are going to
say or think. Thinking this way can only cause harm. There are absolutely no pay offs or benefits
to thinking this way. As Ive already stated, When you focus on your thoughts on the possibility
of failure, you are more likely to fail. (McCroskey, 21) The way I react to these assumptions

Cognitive Reconstructing

and the lies I tell myself leave me in a very negative place and if I continue with these
assumptions, I can never grow or get better at public speaking. There is definitely a ripple effect
when thinking in this way. If you think in a negative way there will be a better chance of a
negative outcome. However, there is another option, if you think in a positive way theres more
hope of a positive outcome. If I work on my fears and think in a more positive way about my
speeches, I believe that I could have a better impact on people. I wont have that fear of failure or
what other people think of me and because of that; I will be able to speak freely without those
fears. My new positive thought process excites me for the future of my public speaking. I hope
that one day I can influence our culture in a positive way. My hope for this speech class is to
conquer my many fears of public speaking and be able to talk without hearing the lies that I tell
myself. These are the hopes that I have, and I am determined to prevail!
Engleberg, I. N., & Daly, J. A. (2012). Understanding Communication Apprehension. In J. C.
McCroskey (Ed.), THINK: Public speaking (p. 21). Austin: University of Texas.