A number of clients I work with struggle with the ‘inner voice’. I’m sure you know what I mean…..that little gremlin that gets inside your head and does nothing but talk to you whilst you are trying to deliver a presentation.
It’s not saying encouraging words like we need it to and want it to, but it uses negative language and puts you down so that you get to a point where you feel you are going to fail……and what happens? You feel like you can’t do it.
It’s a snowball effect. As soon as you question your ability (or the inner voice questions it) you may start to lose your focus and so you start to stumble over your words. It’s at this point that you might find the nerves are going crazy and you want to run away and never come back.
Getting control over these negative words is key to feeling confident and being able to deliver an effective presentation.
Recognise some of these?
“You’re rubbish” “No one wants to listen to you” “Everyone is looking at you” ” You are so boring, no one’s interested” ” You just made a mistake, how stupid!” “You’re going bright red, everyone can see you don’t know what you are talking about”……….they are endless, and I’m sure you have some you could add here!
A good exercise for you to do is this: Fold a piece of paper in half long ways. On the left hand side write a list of all the negative things you hear from your inner voice. Then go to the right hand side and flip it…what I mean is flip the negative statement so it reads as a positive. So for example, if you have written “You are so boring, no one wants to listen to you” write “You are so interesting, everyone is listening to you”.
Flipping the negative language for positive can make a huge difference on how you approach your public speaking.
Good luck!
