Public speaking (cue horror music). Even the words themselves conjure terrible thoughts and instill fear in the hearts of many. While I myself used to hate giving speeches, I’ve done a complete 180 and now feel very comfortable with them. Read on to discover some tips that have helped me and could potentially help you next time you’re up at the podium.
1) Realize that becoming a better public speaker is a goal
A goal is attainable. You don’t have to accept your fate and always be terrified of speaking in front of others; it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of hopelessly shrugging your shoulders and resigning yourself to the fact that public speaking will never be easy for you, shift your mindset to believe that yes, you CAN improve at speaking and yes, you will. But as with any goal, you’ll achieve it only after a lot of hard work.
2) Practice makes perfect…
Since goals are attainable, that means they take work. Unless you’re a seasoned pro, it’s hard to get up there and just wing it. Personally, I like practicing subtle things like when to pause, the timing on when to laugh at your own cheesy joke, or even reminding yourself of when to emphasize a certain phrase. Little things like this all add up, and it’s okay to practice them. The trick is to make them seem natural, and ironically, you can practice them without seeming rehearsed. Practice your speech on your own, until you feel comfortable enough to practice in front of your friends and family. After all, if you don’t feel comfortable rehearsing in front of them, how comfortable will you be in front of a bunch of strangers?
3) …but there is a “right” way to practice
While practicing on your own, consider speaking in front of a mirror or recording yourself. Watching yourself on video can be a bit of a rude awakening and show you all of your bad habits. When you’re speaking, you get absorbed by what you’re saying (or maybe by your nervousness) and lack the impersonal viewpoint; on a recording though, you notice the flailing arms, the nervous tics, the shaky voice…all of the things that the audience might notice. After putting so much time into writing your speech and rehearsing, you owe it to yourself to get the finishing touches right.
4) To read or not to read?
Speaking is at the heart of a speech. Reading is not. Too often, people give a “read” and just read off of their paper instead of give a speech. If you rehearse enough and practice sufficiently, you should have a general idea of what you want to say. You don’t have to recite everything from memory word for word, but a great speech is one where you connect with the audience. Connecting with the audience will be difficult if you’re constantly looking down to read, and only glance up on occasion. Try to flip the ratio: look up more than you look down. Put yourself in the audience’s shoes. Afterall, don’t you prefer when a speaker looks into the audience, gestures, and gives the speech some life, rather than staring down at a paper the whole time?
5) Your presentation is all about presentation
A speech is kind of like putting on a show. We’ve already established that a speaker who looks at members of the audience is probably going to be deemed a better speaker than one who ignores the audience; for one, at least it shows some confidence and knowledge on the part of the speaker. Let’s picture this though: speaker A has her speech on paper with her, but she’s looking down at it a lot. She’s sort of mumbling into the microphone, maybe in a monotonous tone. The audience tunes out because they can’t really understand her, and her monotonous voice is starting to bore them. Now we have speaker B. She has her speech on paper with her, but it’s more of a safety net. She’s treating her speech like a conversation with the audience, and not looking at the paper as much as she’s looking at the crowd and talking to them. Remember, when we talk, we naturally make facial expressions, we gesture with our hands (but don’t bring out your inner Italian and go too wild with arm movements! Movement can be distracting), we pause, we speak at different tempos, we inflect our voice to show happiness, surprise, sadness. this is the sort of speech that’s engaging and real, it’s dynamic and comes to life. And this is exactly the sort of presentation that will make you stand out.
6) The audience isn’t out to get you
So let’s say you practice a lot, feel comfortable with your words, intend to recite mostly from memory, and….you get up to speak and completely forget everything. What happened?! Well, practicing in front of a mirror or even a few people can be different than a room full of strangers. That’s when you need to realize what the audience really is. They’re just people who probably would be as nervous as you are to speak. They get it. A bunch of them aren’t even listening. If it’s a conference or convention of some sort, some of them are likely rehearsing their own speeches in their heads. Some people might be sort of listening but mostly watching you and how you speak. After all, it’s easier to tune out and watch than tune in and listen. The point is, they’re just people; the aren’t monsters who are going to eat you. Once you put them into perspective and conquer your fear of the audience, you’ll have one less thing to worry about! Even if they are intently listening to you, that’s a GOOD thing. If they pay attention, it shows they truly care about what you have to say.
7) Tie it all together
You can get better at public speaking by shifting your mindset to understand that it’s something you can tackle, just like any other goal or project in your life. Practice beforehand to familiarize yourself with your words and what you want to look like when you speak; having a great written speech is wonderful, but if you look like you’re landing a plane by flailing your arms too much, it’ll take away from the power of your speech. Try to speak to your audience instead of read to them. However, memorizing can have its downsides too, so feel free to glance at your speech from time to time. Lastly, the audience isn’t all that scary. Seriously. They’ll appreciate and compliment you for seeming confident and for engaging with them. And that affirmation of your public speaking skills is exactly what’ll encourage you to do even better next time.