I recently took a course in public speaking and have greatly diminished my fear of it. Every time I got in front of a group of people to speak, my heart would be pounding and I would nervously deliver my speech. However, I've gotten a lot better about this after learning a few things. The first thing to realize is that you'll never get rid of the fear or nerves completely. It is possible to improve in this respect though. The key to accomplishing this is confidence.

It might seem obvious that becoming more confident will minimize nerves but the process by which you gain confidence might not be as obvious. The first step towards it would be to prepare and rehearse. Before you need to speak in public, know what you are going to say. Know it so well that once you start talking, your brain will basically go into auto-pilot. Otherwise, you'll end up thinking about what to say too much while speaking and it'll probably show. If you know what to say, you'll find yourself talking almost mindlessly allowing you to focus on how you deliver your speech. You can focus on sounding more confident and basically hiding your nervousness.

The simple act of preparing for a speech will increase your confidence and therefore decrease your nerves. This holds true because much of the nervousness before speaking comes from not knowing what to say. This is easily fixed. What also greatly helps in increasing confidence is the act of public speaking itself. When you give a speech, you learn about what works for you, what doesn't and you gain experience. Therefore, you can improve your speaking and the act itself becomes more familiar. Every speech you give will contribute more and more to your confidence.

The self-satisfaction you get from speaking and knowing the people in front of you are impressed is a fantastic experience. It makes you feel great and is also a huge confidence booster which will further help overcome the fear of public speaking. Ultimately, practice is the key to confidence and confidence is the key to overcoming fear.

As a final word, taking a public speaking course in college helped me tremendously. So, if you have access to one, I'd highly recommend it. Good luck.