A fear of public speaking is incredibly common, but it's a skill that grants a lot of power to the beholder. When you're someone who is charismatic and confident, sharing ideas can be a lot of fun and your productivity as a team can skyrocket. If you are someone who wants to improve your presenting skills and you want to know how to speak in public, I have some insights to become more confident and compelling presenter.
During your time in school, you may have been forced into scenarios where you had to present. You may have reluctantly presented, or, you may have just flat out rebelled and refused. Either way, there was an uncomfortable feeling that surfaced.
The public speaking fear factor comes down to a number of things, usually it's a case of the more you practise speaking in public, the better you become. For others, there may be a routed reason you need to overcome.
The fear of presenting is a good thing to overcome for your future, it will ultimately offer you a new perspective on how to communicate information and be more confident in front of people. For some, this comes down to an anxiety of public speaking, for others, in rare cases...it may be a phobia of public speaking.
And let me tell you, I've been there. I used to be totally afraid of standing up in front of people, even if they were people I knew, even if it were only a few...I totally rejected the idea of doing it, every time.
By the time I got to university, I had gone through a good amount of presentations. When I needed to present in university (usually to smaller groups) I always had the unpleasant feeling before I started, but after I started...I usually began to like it!
But this enjoyment doesn't just happen, everyone has the presentation style, mine was to be prepared and move around when speaking. In this post, I hope to get closer to finding your own presentation techniques or resourceful public speaking tips.
Is Public Speaking a Skill?
First we need to establish a purpose for improving our ability to speak in public. To improve your presentation skills, it will require practise, and if you're getting better at something over time, then it's pretty much defined as a skill.
But is it a skill worth having? Yes, it's incredibly beneficial. Overcoming the fear in presenting will improve you in more areas than one. Confidence is one of the prevailing areas but you will also improve in organisation, critical thinking, introspection and self awareness to name a few.
A good way to check if you want this skill, is to try imagine yourself as someone who IS that confident person at presenting. If you feel a particular jolt or want to become that person, you should want to overcome the public speaking fear.
There are a many types of public speaking, specifically, ever person has their 'way'. Like I said before I have my own tips that I will speak about below, one of them for example, is that I will always have something in my hand, it could be the control for the presentation or just a pen.
I know people who like to bring physical examples of things they are presenting, and they pass this around the audience while they speak, this is another technique some people could use.
Some people are able to remain seated and still command a high level of charisma, others need to stand and move around to keep the momentum of the presentation and allow others to concentrate and channel their attention.
The Art of Public Speaking
The idea of public speaking being an art comes down to the idea that you can collect resourceful information together and present it in a confident and compelling way to an audience. You're able to make it consumable for them in a short space of time and you allow them to enjoy the consumption of the information you have to present.
To do this, preparation is crucial. You need to put effort into the preparation of your information and with this preparation comes an incredible amount of confidence while presenting the data.
For example, we can think of a teacher, these people need to be great presenters in order to be effective but also to be respected and trusted.
The good teachers spend so much time planning their classes because they understand the importance of doing so, they even have allotted times in their day to 'lesson plan'. What they are trying to do, is think of their audience (which they know) and make the information consumable and memorable to them, it's actually a great phycological and logistical challenge.
If you are on a path of self improvement generally speaking, this is for sure one of the skills you should concentrate on, even if your current scenario doesn't ask for it.
Public speaking skills are only useful when we try them, so we need to go through the battle of trial and error. Being better at presentations will improve many aspects of your life, I couldn't recommend it enough, make a promise to yourself to not be that nervous person in the back of the room!
How to Overcome a Fear of Public Speaking
Like I say, this is no 'one trick pony'. This will be a journey of trial and error, however at the end of it your fear of public speaking will be behind you and you'll become someone who enjoys the idea of conveying ideas through discussion to an audience.
Public speaking in general, could be thought as you speaking in front of a class or you speaking to a table of people, it could even be over a skype/zoom chat, or some other format.
This is one of my justifications to learn it, there are so many scenarios in the modern day that invite this skill to be practised, even when we don't think about it.
Talk to yourself
I don't want you to start going crazy, but if you have a mirror especially, it would be a good idea to practise your presentation skills...to yourself!
You want to set yourself up as a kind of 'transmitter' and 'receiver' at the same time, be receptive to your output and judge whether you are being concise, saying things in the right way and generally have the skill of being easy to listen to.
But it doesn't stop there, you also need to consider the physical and visual aspect. When you speak, evaluate whether you are standing there with confidence or whether you are slouched over, your body language will speak volumes to your confidence.
Why is this important? Because if you are not confident, its very hard for people to be receptive and trust what you are saying. You need to convey confidence in order for people to have confidence in you, you do this via body language.
Public speaking goes hand in hand with body confidence. You want to use a mirror effectively and just evaluate how you come across. Equally, you want to pay attention to what you wear, whether it's something you feel confident in or not is crucial!
Having a reflection of your presenting skill allows you to improve it, if you want to be better at presenting information, practise by presenting to you!
Be confident to move
Personally, I think this one is important. When I say 'move' I'm referring to the idea of using hand movements to emphasis your speech, but also moving around the room to keep the attention of your audience.
Again, with the example above and using a mirror, you can begin to evaluate how you do this. But a better way, if possible, is to practise in a similar room to the room you will be presenting in. You may know this information, or you may not.
If you're able to practise in the venue you will be presenting in, use this advantage for sure. just get familiar with the stage. Familiarity leads to being comfortable, they work hand in hand.
Be proud of your preparation
If your preparation is done well, you can basically say to yourself that you have 80%+ chance of doing well, it's honestly the biggest factor of presenting well.
If you wanted to know how to speak more professionally, the answer is to know what you are talking about and this is done through preparation.
The fear of presenting usually comes from the uncertainty of what you are going to present and how you are going to present it. To solve this, you just need to practise exactly those two things.
If you are afraid of public speaking, take a moment to think about the times you presented and which of those you were genuinely prepared for. If in most cases you weren't, this public speaking tip alone may benefit you the most!
I'm sure if you are presenting something you will be using PowerPoint (or some equivalent) so it's very important to become familiar with that software and really fish around for tips on how to use it.
A big trap of using this software though, is to be over the top in terms of themes and colours. It's important to stay simple and make sure that your content is consumable to other people.
Use technology
These days, we have even more tools available to use that those in the past didn't have. You could count a mirror as technology, but you also have a mobile phone...probably!
This offers you a few options, you can use this to text a friend and have them come round and watch you (and critique you) or you can use it to film yourself presenting.
You have a huge advantage here, if you are able to film yourself doing a full presentation and then watch it back for the good and bad in your style, you can tailor a fix to any problems and really refine how you speak/move/answer questions.
Public speaking is very important, using a phone to film yourself allows you to view your skill as someone else. You can judge whether your volume is adequate, if your pronunciation is clear and whether the points you are making are easy to understand.
If you are someone who isn't great with time, I would advise using a watch, specifically a smart watch if possible! You can use a watch as a countdown timer. Say if you had a 5 minute presentation, set your watch to vibrate at 4 minutes and by that time you know you need to start winding down.
You could also do the above with your phone, but looking at your phone doesn't look great to the audience, a quick glance at your watch every now and again is pretty acceptable and passive.
Public Speaking Tips
I've used a tonne of things in the past, some have worked... others haven't, but here are the things I think you should consider.
Hold a pen while presenting, to keep your hands busy and out of your pockets!
Use a smart watch to keep an eye on time.
Become VERY familiar with your presenting software (PowerPoint)
Keep your presentation simple, both in format and in how you present it, be concise.
Use key cards if you need cue's on where to speak.
On each slide, you are able to put small notes to yourself that you can see, but others cant.
Use the 'notes' section on PowerPoint to show information to you, but not others.
Use hand gestures to give emphasis to your speech.
Nervousness at the beginning is normal, just get past the first 60 seconds of the presentation and you will likely feel different.
If you know your audience, use that to your advantage! Really think about what they would be receptive to, if you can fit humour into your presentation, the better!
Think of your presentation as a story, story telling is a great skill in itself, communicate it with a voice of confidence and emphasis.
Try not to read from paper, if you can memorise what you need to present it would be much better, use keywords if you need to remind yourself
Don't over populate your slides with text, keep them simple and easy to read for your audience
Don't read straight from your slides, expand on what you write on your slides instead
Things you may not think about
Improving your diet closer to your presentation date is key, make sure you eat foods that keep you feeling good. Stay hydrated, and your mind will remain clear and you can adapt if things need to change on demand
Improve your body image, this can be done through exercising and improving your health. This is a longer solution than most, but a very significant one that has amazing and immeasurable benefits.
Think back to why you may be nervous about presenting, is it a specific thing when you started high school, maybe you had one really bad presentation that you don't want to go back to. Identifying this will allow you to evaluate how much progress you made since then.
The clothing you wear will directly impact how confident you feel, make sure you are in clothing that makes you feel good. A good way to do this, is to present in new clothing, something you are happy to be wearing.
These are my general tips for improving your ability to speak in public, I really think it's an amazing skill for self improvement. There will be scenarios in your life where you need to be confident in the conveyance of information.
Whether this be to a group of professionals, or even when speaking to your own children, you need to have that level of conviction that allows the beholder to believe and trust you.
Again, this isn't something that will come over night, keep practising and keep envisioning yourself as someone who is great at presenting.
Free Resource Templates
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Given enough time, you will become that person, keep your mind on the end goal and you will arrive there as long as you practise and fight the fear of presenting.
I totally empathise with those who are nervous about this journey, I was that person, and even now I'm not 'the' most confident presenters. But, I know I'm vastly better than I used to be at public speaking.
In truth, it doesn't take a crazy amount of presentations to show improvements, you will notice from one presentation to the next that you are improving. The mindset is key, have conviction in yourself, prepare in advance, use any of the tips above and you set yourself up for success!
Thanks for reading
PutSimply
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