Warming Up for Public Speaking

Public speaking is an opportunity to share with your audience all the great things you have to bring to the table. Unfortunately, it can also be a little nerve-wracking. Check out these tips to help you overcome your anxiety and polish your public speaking skills.

Hydrate!

You want to feel at your best when you speak, so staying hydrated is an easy way to ensure you feel great.

Know your audience

You’ll have to tailor your speaking to your audience and being familiar with them can help alleviate the stress of not knowing how they might react to you.

Have a beginning, middle, and end

Many people fear getting lost during their public speaking engagement and feeling at a loss for words in front of the audience. Avoid this by clearly defining your speech’s beginning, middle, and end.

Know, don’t memorize.

Memory can be a fickle thing. It’s always best to intrinsically know and understand the material you’re presenting, making it less likely you stumble or forget anything. Be assertive, but not aggressive. You want to be engaged and active in presenting, but not at the expense of other people.

Positivity, positivity, positivity

Keeping a positive environment around you through self-talk, imagery, power posing, and even breathing exercises will help position you for stress-free success.

Mind your non-verbal cues

Although public speaking might seem all about the speaking, you’ll also want to engage the audience appropriately with eye contact and posture.

Avoid any bad habits

You’ll want to look for your own habits of using filler words and ticks during practice. Be especially vigilant in gaps between your thoughts to avoid “Umm…”s and too many “like”s, or having distracting ticks such as tapping your fingers on a table and similar nervous habits.

Most of all, practice!

Practicing your speech several times is the best way to ensure you get a handle on your speaking tone, flow, non-verbal cues and habits. Try out a few of these apps on your phone to help you perfect your public speaking:

  • LikeSo
  • Voiceable
  • Virtual Speech