Speaking is about engagement, not perfection. Like many of my clients, I had adopted a performance mindset and struggled with performance anxiety prior to speaking to an audience or crowd.
In the podcast From Fearful to Courageous Presenting you will hear me share a story about a presentation in college where I stood up at the podium in the lecture hall in front of all my peers and froze. The humiliation I felt in that moment is unmatched by any of the other similar anecdotes I could share. In this article I will share 3 Pro-tips you can implement today to feel more confident when speaking.
Raised in the dance studio beginning at age 4, surrounded by mirrors; I grew accustomed to feedback, from my self-reflection (mostly), video recordings of the annual recital and my dance instructors of course.
If presenting over Zoom exacerbates your anxiety or rattles your nerves, preventing you from making eye contact with the camera, select “hide self-view” to alleviate the mirror image affect.
When in life do we speak in front of a mirror? In few instances if any. In some teleconference situations, you might not have the luxury but when you have agency and control of this choice, it’s a solid strategy.
Since the pivot to remote work during Covid, there’s been an increase in scripting and reading slides which has stripped away the conversational quality to virtual meetings and presentations. The creature comforts behind the screen, have become a problem, resulting in a lack of presence.
Practice speaking from an outline with bullet points or phrases out loud 3-5x and record your voice prior to your talk.
If you only talk out the opening 30-60 seconds, it will increase your confidence as the beginning is when we experience the most apprehension and have the audience’s most attention (primacy theory)! Avoid the common pitfall: Winging the opening. NOTE: Being strategically spontaneous is different than winging it. Listen back while you walk the dog or stretch (do something physical) and incubate on the content. The benefit: you will sound more conversational, less scripted and monotone. Listening to yourself say it a little differently each time builds confidence with the content and warms up your voice. Remember, the audience doesn’t know what you have planned to say, you can’t mess it up, it’s not theater!
In elementary school, I rarely spoke up in class voluntarily. If I was called on, a rush of adrenaline would flood my body as if it was the first time using my voice. I recall, a horrible memory of vomiting on my desk in first grade and attempting to hide it because I was too embarrassed to communicate that I was sick! The longer I hid, the more nervous I became. Ok, now that I write this, it may rival the humiliation factor of my earlier college story, but recent memories generally take the cake (recency theory).
Find the courage to speak sooner than you feel ready.
Contribute an idea in a meeting. Advocate for a colleague and reinforce what she says. Be an ally and share an alternate perspective, “I see this differently….” Point is, get your voice in the room sooner. Ever notice that when you sit on a thought, waiting to “go live,” the anxiety builds…. ultimately your peer shares a similar sentiment met with mmmhmmm’s and head nods, worthy of discussion (cue Homer Simpson, “doe!”). Courage comes before confidence. Volunteer to present first in class, find the on-ramp in the next Monday meeting, it’s all downhill from there.
