Would you like to relieve the pressure of regularly speaking in public? Simple enough, it doesn't matter how highly you rate yourself as a speaker, just choose not to consider yourself as a public speaker! Self evaluation is not easy. I have lots of students and clients who tell me that they're no good at speaking and they don't enjoy performing or the process of preparing speeches and presentations. I am a great believer that even these most negative of thoughts can be turned to a positive advantage. The key thing is to remain sensible, don't beat yourself up over how good or bad you are or how good or bad you think you are. Most importantly, please remember to take the pressure off yourself by saying to yourself that you do not consider yourself to be a public speaker. From a personal perspective, I have never seen myself as a speaker. My real passion is that of a skills trainer which (although involves a lot of speaking time) is quite different. Training is about skills transfer and ensuring that the class is involved in productive, engaging and relevant activities. A six to eight minute speech in training just doesn't happen. Training is more involved, you explain, you show, you demonstrate and then you pass it over to the learners for their input. A 6-8 minute speech is an eternity in the training environment and just never happens. It is inevitable that when we become involved in speaking, we are often heavily influenced by those closest to us. Those that show us the speaking ropes. For those with excessive imagination, we may try to emulate JF Kennedy, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. The overriding issue now is that you're rushing towards a problem of personal integrity and authenticity. People are not stupid. Your audience can see straight through a phoney. Always remember that you and your personality are just as good, if not better than anybody else. People buy into the person before the message, so be yourself above all else. When you take the pressure off yourself and focus on your audience and your authentic message to them, you will soon become aware of the warmth you receive from the audience and their response to the value that you're adding to their lives. How do we take the pressure off ourselves? Tell yourself that you do not consider yourself to be a public speaker. But there's no harm is enjoying speaking, is there? Copyright (c) 2010 The College Of Public Speaking
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