The 3 priorities of successful public speakers
Do you know something that anxiety sufferers have in common with everyone else? Fear of public speaking. If you have anxiety disorder, you have probably realized that dealing with crowds can be extremely unnerving. Whenever you try (or get forced into) doing so, you probably start sweating compulsively, shaking, drawing a mental blank and wishing that you would just vanish.
Well, we have news for you. Those feelings are not exclusive of anxiety patients. As a matter of fact, even seemingly adjusted and well-rounded individuals will often break down when asked to stand in front of an audience doing a presentation of any kind. That’s because they’re thinking about a lot of things instead of focusing on the essentials that would guarantee success and effectiveness in public speaking.
There are simple techniques that anyone can use to help overcome their fear of public speaking, whether or not they have anxiety disorder. It essentially boils down to three key aspects, which we’ll review extensively in this article.
- Being confident in what you have to say.
- Being comfortable with your crowd.
- Being familiar with good relaxation techniques.
Priority 1: Know what you have to say.
It’s bewildering how most people who look for a way to improve their public speaking skills tend to get bogged down with technicalities such as body posture or mnemonics. While those kinds of techniques can be used (and we’ll discuss them later in this article), they are by no means the top priority for successful public speaking. If you want to deliver a public speech without fear of failure, forgetting or choking, your main focus should be on your message.
You cannot deliver a good speech unless you know what you’re saying.
It’s not sufficient to just “know”. That is just the bare minimum. You should be confident that you know what you’re saying. You need to be passionate about what you have to say, and clearly convey your expertise. You should be concerned with your message above everything else. As long as you focus on your message, the audience will surely be pleased. But if you focus on your audience, the message will surely be lost.
If you are worried about failing to deliver a good speech or presentation, you need to channel that energy towards practicing, rather than worrying. You should know every aspect of your message; not just the words but specifically what you want to say because you may easily forget the words. If you’re serious about saying something to the target audience, how can you possibly fail?
Priority 2: Be comfortable with your crowd
There is something funny about feeling intimidated when asked to address a crowd. Consider this: when asked to deal with a few of your friends and colleagues at a time, you will probably feel perfectly comfortable and experience no sweat whatsoever. But if by chance you have to address dozens of your friends and colleagues at once, it suddenly gets scary! Why is that?
Because it’s always more intimidating dealing with something you can’t control.
When you’re talking to 3 or 4 of your friends in the local cafe, you have no problems expressing yourself. That is because it’s easier to convey your message when you only have to deal with a few people. But when you have to deliver a presentation to dozens of your colleagues, you’re suddenly faced with the notion that you can’t possibly control such a huge mass of people. Truth is, you cannot possibly control anyone. What you can do is to perfectly align your message to your target audience to get the best possible results.
While preparing for public speaking, you should spend a good deal of time considering the audience you’re addressing, even as you prepare the message. Once you find the angle that will allow expressing what you have to say in a way that meets the sensibilities and interests of the audience, you will find that people are naturally interested in what you have to say, and that will instantly boost your confidence when speaking in public.
Priority 3: Are you still nervous?
Motivational speakers often tell you to open your presentation with a joke or to imagine the audience in their underwear in order to stay relaxed. This is not good advice, really. This kind of reasoning will only make you more self-aware, which is the opposite of how you want to feel. In order to excel at public speaking and exude confidence and charisma, your awareness must be fully focused on your message, rather than yourself.
Always adjust your speech to the expectations of the audience. If the public expects a laid-back tone, you should use it; however, if they expect a serious and succinct presentation, that should be your goal. If you feel a playful and light-hearted approach might help get your message across, go for it! If you think you’d rather stick to the facts, then stick to the facts.
If you’re feeling nervous, you can try relaxation exercises, and you may want to do a bit of meditation before getting out there and doing your presentation or speech. You can use any tricks you like, but just make sure that’s not your main focus. Otherwise, those tricks will just push your attention away from what’s important. And what’s important is what you’re trying to say, and who you’re trying to say it to.
Conclusion: Stay focused and you you’ll forget to be afraid
Your main concerns when facing and audience should be “What do I have to say?” and “How do I get the point across?”. Preoccupations such as “How am I going to be able to relax?” should be secondary. Most people fail at public speaking because they don’t realize this.
Just as long as you stay focused on the reasons why you’re standing there, you won’t even have time to be nervous and fear public exposure or ridicule. If you manage to stay focused on what you’re saying and if you use your sensibility to adjust what you have to say to the target audience, then you simply cannot fail. And more than likely, you’ll forget to be afraid.
