Learning to Speak Confidently
Confidence doesn’t come naturally. At least to some people. It’s a muscle that needs training and practice. When I first started my career, my confidence in my public speaking was pretty mediocre.
I knew that I could present easily on my data trends and insights but was it effective? Was I presenting in a way that the senior leadership team and that my more experienced colleagues actually took me seriously and wanted to here I what I had to say?
The answer: I wasn’t sure…
BUT I didn’t want to wait to find out.
I wanted to be sure that I could stand out and make an impact with my words. After initial conversations between my manager and I, we came across a public speaking training called “Confident Speaking for Women”.
It was challenging. Even before we did introductions, we had to record ourselves giving an introductory elevator pitch so we could have a baseline of what we looked like and how we sounded. To spare you from that video, just imagine a very quiet, shy, introvert awkwardly stumbling through an elevator pitch made up on the fly the 3 minutes prior. Yikes. But it’s okay, we’ve all got to start somewhere.
During the training, we jumped into various worksheets, scenarios, and slides, and finished up with version 2 of our elevator pitch. Comparing the two videos back to back, I looked like a different person. My posture was better, my voice was loud and clear, my movements were intentional, and my eye contact game was strong! I wouldn’t have noticed it without practicing it and making conscious adjustments.
I took what I learned in the course and applied it back to my work with IT service reviews presentation to senior leadership. Immediately, I noticed a big difference in how I felt during and after the meeting, but also in the audience’s engagement level with what I was presenting during the meeting.
Based off of my experience above, I wanted to share my main takeaways from that training course.
3 focus areas to build up your confidence in your public speaking skills:
- What You Say
- What You Don’t Say
- Putting It Into Practice
Watch Your Language! 🤐
Avoid Fillers & Talk Traps (trap emoji or cap “language” gif)
Fillers are those words we use when we pause while still thinking through what we’re going to say next. Think along the lines of using “so”, “like”, and the infamous “umm”.
Talk Traps are ways and manners in which we speak that undermine our credibility. An example of this would be negative self talk (“I’m not very good at presenting…”) or unnecessarily apologizing (“Sorry, I’ll go ahead and change the slide…”). This way of speaking takes the focus away from the main points you’re trying to get across and puts yourself down.
Instead of defaulting to fillers and talk traps, understand what your goal is and think through what you want to say beforehand so you can refine it.
Don’t Forget About the Non-Verbals 🤫
As important as the verbals are, the non-verbals such as your appearance, stance, posture, eye movement, and even hand movements tell a story to the audience about you and your confidence level. Even your vocal speed and power are important to be aware of.
Do you speak at a fast or slow pace? Do you speak on the quieter side where people usually think you’re whispering? Or do you only use an “outside” voice during presentations? All of this should be adjusted appropriately to match your situation because it affects how engaged your audience is with you and can distract from the message you’re trying to relay.
Practice, Practice, and then Practice Again 💪
| It’s like my high school orchestra teacher would say: “practice makes progress”
Practicing what you plan to say helps in coming across as more confident. Whether you’re practicing with a family or friends, recording yourself to watch it back, or just practicing in the mirror, it makes a difference to notice your verbal and visual cues.
Planning or scripting what you want to say can also help with this endeavor. I would encourage you to ask yourself the following:
- What is the purpose and goal of what you’re saying?
- Why should the audience care about what you have to say?
- How can you hook your audience when you first begin speaking?
- What should your audience’s main takeaways be?
- What is the message you want to convey and the intended outcomes?
- Practice talking about yourself, your plans, and your accomplishments
