Public Speaking: 5 Powerful Tips To Improve Your Public Speaking
You may not give presentations regularly in front of a group (like as your duty in the job). But you should have public speaking skills to make a speech in a club event/meeting to inspire a group of volunteers at a charity event or a friend's wedding.
You can increase your confidence and overcome speech-related anxiety you may
have by improving your public speaking skills.
Even people suffering from social anxiety disorder (SAD) can become confident
speakers by working on public speaking skill improvement.
Check out this 5 powerful tips to improve your public speaking skills:
1. Control your voice
For a public speaker, voice is the most important tool. Improve your voice simply by learning to breathe fully and deeply from your diaphragm/belly breathing. It is essential for accessing your most powerful voice.
Professional singers use to make their voices sound fabulous by using this technique. Thus a speaker can make it possible to hold notes long after most people would be out of breath.
2. Improve body language for public speaking
Body language is the way of communication without using words. Facial expressions, gestures, and movements are part of that.
It conveys what's going on in your mind. Strong practice and confident body language boost up your presentation. Some advice about this:
Stand up straight
Make sure that you stand straight and tall while delivering a speech in public.
Gain the position with power
Take your little time to stand in a powerful position, especially you feel stress before a public speech. It will increase your self-confidence and reduce anxiety and stress. As an example, you can take the "superhero" pose.
Just put your hands on your hips, keep your chin up, and your chest out.
Change facial expression
Match your facial expressions with the message you are giving. Try to
express a joyful and relaxed look on your face when you give an optimistic
speech.
Move around the space you are given
Pass yourself from side to side can prevent your audience from falling asleep. But move politely not so fast.
3. Follow the delivery tips
In public speaking, delivery is the heart. Good voice and good body language will be nothing if your audience can't pursue what you are saying, and thus your message gets lost. Some tips for good delivery skills:
Don't speak too fast or too slowly
The audience will understand you hardly if you talk too fast. Too slow talk may make them fallen asleep. So talking at a conversational pace is safe in
public speaking
Take a break between ideas
A good public speaker pauses for two to three seconds or even longer between two ideas, paragraphs, or different things/matters/tools. It let the audience have time to understand what you are talking about. And it ensures you to be more confident and control in that environment.
Eliminate filler words
These are "um," "ah," "you know," "like" type words. They affect your authenticity and distract from your message. Just replace these words with break/pauses.
Correctly pronounce your words: It is hard to understand the speech from a
mumbling public speaker.
4. Maintain Relation with the audience
You need to engage your audience for successful public speaking. For this
you should:
Recognize your audience
Do it as soon as you take your place/stage. It will make you s like a "real"
person and allow a conversational sound.
Get their attention instantly
You should do it within the first 30 seconds maximum of 60 seconds.
Otherwise, you will lose their attention. You can ask a
thought-provoking rhetorical question or start with a short, relevant,
consistent, and interesting story —anything that will keep them engaged.
Make eye contact
Try to make eye contact with each member of the audience if possible. You have to make sure that your audience will feel like you are speaking directly to them and giving importance to their thoughts. Check out
more:
Video credit: Mind Tools
5. Receive feedback and evaluate your public speaking performance
Still, you may have inefficiency in some areas. Then make a post evaluation of your every speech in public speaking by watching the event's recording or receiving feedback.
Make corrections in those fields/areas/skills and perform a lot of practices
to give your best in the next public speaking event with your improved
skills.
You can join courses (including online) on public speaking for more
real-life experiences.
Bottom line
Fear of public speaking is the main obstacle to improving public speaking skills. Improving new public speaking skills can help you to remove/reduce the fear.
Besides improving your public speaking skills is helpful, a solid framework
of those efforts can overcome your or other's anxiety.
No comments