The Stages of a Speech
There are 3 stages of giving a speech:
Preparatory
Delivering the speech
Analysis
Preparatory
You’ll probably think of figuring out what you’ll say, maybe creating slides, defining the through-line of your presentation, but there’s something else that’s almost always forgotten... preparing for nerves.
This is often seen as an afterthought (‘I hope I don’t get nervous’ or ‘I hope no one sees if I’m shaking’) without a practical game plan for if/when nerves do hit. Visualisation, imagination, physical (breath, but also body awareness) and other creative exercises are so powerful for managing nerves.
This preparation is about figuring out what exactly is making you nervous in the presentation setting and exploring it, thus shrinking it down to a manageable size and letting your truer, more brilliant YOU take the reigns.
I knew a violinist who built herself a very wobbly table. What was this for, you might ask?
The night before the performance she was preparing for, she would get dressed into the outfit she would wear for the performance, shoes, hair, makeup, everything. She would then get onto said wobbly table and play her entire program, the wobbliness and the risk of falling mimicking the nerves she would feel in front of the audience the following night. She knew the nerves would come and this was her way of preparing for them.
In a way, it’s working with the nerves, instead of working against them.
Maybe your version of nerves-preparation isn’t a wobbly table, maybe it’s setting a date 1 week prior to your presentation to run through it in front of a group of colleagues. Sure, it’s not exactly the same as performing it in the moment, but this chance to get nervous and do a run-through will teach you so much.
Or maybe it’s something else entirely.
Delivering the speech
There’s so much to say here and figuring out what exactly works for you will be a process of trial and error and working through different techniques with a communication coach. Here are some key points for nerves management for the moment in the hot seat:
BREATHE! Overstated and underused. Each new wave of nerves you feel is a chance to take a deeper breath.
Take pauses - a pause to the person presenting feels infinitely longer than it does to the audience so take. your. time.
Make eye contact with people in the audience. This not only builds rapport and keeps them engaged, but settles your nerves as well. They are humans out there, after all, and 99.9% they want you to succeed in that moment. Find some friendly faces and look to them from time to time.
Do it scared. I had a singing teacher tell me this in university and it sort of revolutionised how I thought about nerves. The nerves won’t go away altogether, so get comfy with them and go ahead any way.
Analysis
Working as a performer, everyone and their uncle has an opinion about what you’re doing on stage. I’m not saying this is wrong, in fact I think it’s important for people to vocalise their opinions and connect over what they like/dislike about art. Art is storytelling and storytelling is how we can identify and better understand ourselves.
Sometimes it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by 17649260 opinions, though.
What I have to say about the post-speech time is…
Don’t look for feedback directly afterwards. Pat yourself on the back for getting up there and doing it and focus on the positive parts of your performance. Relax, feel proud and move on.
Wait until the adrenaline has died down, ideally until the next day or a couple days later, when you’re removed from the situation. That’s the time for you to reflect on how it was for you up there, how you felt and what you could have done differently in the preparation or delivery stage for a different desired outcome. That’s also the time to go to a colleague/friend for feedback on your performance and if there was a video of it to take a look (as cringey as it may be to watch!)
Would you like to figure out how all of this applies to you and have some concrete tools to manage nerves when public speaking? Let’s chat!
