5 Tips to Up Your Public Speaking Game

Whether you’re a confident public speaker, or if you need a little help, these five things can make or break a speech.

Public speaking can be daunting. None of us want to embarrass ourselves or the people we work with, and we all want to come off the stage feeling like we did our best. In my experience writing speeches for executives in aerospace, giving speeches around communities to represent my TV station and giving live shots, you can take note of five things right now to change for your next speech to instantly up your game!

Take a deep breath

This sounds oh-so-cheesy but it really is a game-changer. Before going out to do a speech, or doing a live shot on camera, deep breaths can help you get your “game face” on and slow your adrenaline. Some adrenaline is good (there’s nothing like a quick dose of energy!) but too much can make your hands shake at the podium or cause your voice to waver as you struggle to appear calm. In other words: a deep breath helps you center. I often accompany that with shaking my arms out, or a shoulder roll. I would tell my interviewees to do this too, and it worked for so many!

Harvard Medical School suggests there’s a good reason for that: a deep breath is your body’s built-in stress reliever. This post says, ” Deep abdominal breathing encourages full oxygen exchange — that is, the beneficial trade of incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide. Not surprisingly, it can slow the heartbeat and lower or stabilize blood pressure. ” Obviously, that’s an incredible benefit right before you do something that requires intense concentration, connection with the audience, poise and confidence like public speaking!

The next time you get in front of an audience to make a speech, do a deep and diaphragmatic breath and go for it!

Give yourself a compliment

The first rule of positivity is to be kind to yourself! And before a speech, when your confidence is key, helping yourself feel good in a healthy way is a great thing to practice.

Maybe you tell yourself simply, “You got this!” before walking onstage. Or, you could go find a mirror, look yourself in the eye and say out loud, “I am strong, I am capable and I am a powerful speaker!” Hey, whatever works! All that matters is that you come away from the interaction with your own mind feeling ready to go.

Before a live shot where I felt immense pressure to be “on” or I felt concerned that I wouldn’t hit the details just right, I would think a prayer from under the camera lights. As the anchor tossed to me, and before I opened my mouth, I wanted my last thought to be, “God, be with me.” To me, that’s an empowering move. It allows me to remember who, in my faith, is in control and can help me be my best in order to serve the viewers. It was not only helpful, but it allowed me to take the pressure off myself in that moment. I respond well to stress, but too much stress during a big moment can be crippling to your agility and your body when you need to be smooth, authoritative and collected to an audience.

Have a laugh

Oh, the relief that comes pouring out when you let yourself laugh! Similar to taking a deep breath, I imagine that I can almost feel the stress leaving me with that staccato exhale of laughter.

Lifehack.org provides these tips for letting more laughter into your life. Before a live shot, connecting with the videographer behind the camera often did it for me (unless we were on a tragic story where laughter at the scene would not be appropriate.) The institution says that laughter can not only lead to those physical benefits we talked about for deep breathing, but there is also an added mental health benefit including improving your mood and increasing endorphins.

Look your best

When we look our best, we feel our best. So, make sure you’ve worn an outfit you love, that your hairstyle is your fave (and won’t get in your eyes while you’re speaking!) and your shoes are comfortable.

It helps if your outfit does not distract the audience. Don’t wear any jewelry that jangles: the mic will catch it and it will detract from your message. Big or light-reflecting jewelry is great for high fashion or a fun brunch, but make sure it doesn’t overwhelm your body and become a focal point for the audience under the lighting. And if your clothes don’t fit well and you’re constantly pulling on them or adjusting them, the audience will notice and deem you “fidgety,” which could signal to them that you are not confident in what you are saying.

Instead, choose jewelry that is your style and taste (preferably modern and of-the-moment) but allows you to freely gesture and move. Choose footwear that will reduce your tendency to trip or stumble. Wear shoes that you can stand or walk in for a while. And bring the attitude you want your outfit to say about you!

Fake it till you make it

It really is true: if you aren’t confident, pretend you are! It works. Eventually, you start to see it pay off even if you don’t think it’s going well the first time you try it.

Do what you have to do to fake confidence: stand up a little straighter, give out a few firm handshakes, smile and tell everyone how happy you are to be there and how excited you are to give your talk (even if you aren’t!) People feed on that energy and give it back to you. Everyone knows when you aren’t enthusiastic about something because they can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice and see it in your body language.

Try this: close your eyes and say, “I love this.” Then, with your eyes still closed, smile and say the same phrase. Do you hear the difference? You can hear the smile! The same thing translates to the eye. A smile changes your whole body and invites people to share in your joy. Allow that to change how you speak.

It also helps to pretend you are acting during a public engagement. Imagine a confident person you admire and try to act like them or pretend you have some of their traits. How would they respond to this stress? How would they walk on stage and greet a crowd? This technique allows you to distance yourself from the emotion of fear or anxiety. If you are not you, then you don’t feel those things as strongly and can detach from them.

Confidence may be something we struggle with, but we can overcome those forces that weigh us down and keep us from feeling our best in small increments until one day, you believe in yourself and have been living in a confident on-stage persona long enough to make it a part of you.