Three Ways To Practice Your Presentations
We all know that practice is the best way to perfect our skills. The problem is that most of us think that we are too busy to practice so we just “wing it” and hope for the best.
I see many people on my courses who started using this approach but have been put off presenting for life as a result of the failures it often guarantees. As a result I have to spend quite a lot of time helping them get over their phobia of public speaking.
In order to stop more people having these problems here are three ways I recommend to develop your skills.
1) Rehearsal out loud: Nothing beats a couple of dry runs in front of some carefully selected colleagues or, failing that in front of a mirror. It’s a great way of ironing out problems, fine tuning content and getting familiar with your material before you have to do it for real in front of an audience that matters!
2) Toasters Clubs: Toastmasters are an international club for people who want to develop their public speaking skills in a supportive and friendly environment. It’s particularly useful for people who want to develop their skills but who don’t currently have a lot of opportunity to practice in their current job.
3) Mental Rehearsal: Whether you make the time to practice out loud or not, you have no excuse for not rehearsing in your imagination prior to the big day. Find a quiet spot – I often use the bathroom, and run a movie in your mind’s eye. Imagine that you are sitting in the audience watching and listening to yourself give the presentation to talk. See yourself looking confident, calm and convincing. Hear yourself sounding authoritative and congruent, with a clear voice and a nice medium pace delivery speed, punctuated by effective pauses for emphasis. Finally, hear the applause from the rest of the audience at the end of the presentation.
If you have time you can re-run this visualisation but this time, see it through the eyes of the speaker. See your audience responding just the way you want them to. hear your voice strong, confident and powerful. Feel the initial nerves quickly drain away as you start to really enjoy the process of engaging with your audience.
Follow one or all of these simple suggestions and you can learn to enjoy rather than fear the art of public speaking.
