Anyone who has had to give a speech/presentation at school, college, work, or even to friends and relatives, will no doubt understand how nerve-wracking it can be. Articulating points one after the other in a carefully-considered manner, being flexible and reactive enough to take questions, and doing so in a manner that doesn’t bore our audience to tears or leave us trembling with anxiety can be a hard ask.
But the truth is that presentation skills can be a valuable commodity if we decide to train them. We can look to great examples of smooth and sophisticated talkers that keep you engaged, like heads of state, actors, or internationally recognized icons like the ShamWow Guy Vince Offer to see how it’s done.
But what if we hope to work on those skills ourselves? Perhaps we want to run our own YouTube channel and present our ideas with an engaging tone, or we want to absolutely ace that bigwig interview opportunity we have in order to get that promotion or work for a highly competitive brand.
Where are you supposed to get started? In this post, we’ll discuss that and more:
Taking Public Speaking Classes
Public speaking classes can be a great way to dip your toe into this effort without having to do this for real. A nurturing teacher and group all trying to do the same thing you are can help you feel a little bit more comfortable. When you can trip over your words or fumble an answer and realize that you can make it through without ruining your entire presentation, you’re less likely to feel as if this is a roadblock you can never overcome. Toastmasters is perhaps the most well known group, but there may be other initiatives in your local area worth considering, too.
Working On Your Enunciation & Diction
It’s good to work on how you enunciate words and to what degree you project your voice. Reading out the speeches of great leaders and trying to figure out the tone of their words, and how words should be delivered can help exercise your vocal chords, lips and tongue towards speaking efficiently and with care, especially if you tend to slur your words or mumble. Practice makes perfect.
Getting Stuck In & Out Of Your Comfort Zone
It’s important to realize that getting stuck in and trying to get out of your comfort zone in this manner can improve you as a person. When you actively seek something that you’re scared of and realize that actually, you have more than the potential to overcome it, something clicks in your mind. Don’t think that this is impossible, you’ve likely done this countless times without realizing it in the past. Doing so can help you identify your worth even more, which ironically (but beautifully) enough, can help feed into how you hold yourself when public speaking, too.
With this advice, we hope you can see how improving your presentation skills can be a great way of improving yourself as a person.