Register an account for free to remove this advertisment

Public speaking does not just happen in a public arena – most of it happens within you before you even enter the room or stand up! You bring your stresses, expectations, and anxieties with you into the public speaking room, and they then become the groundwork on which your speech is delivered. So to improve the ability to speak well in scenarios that are usually difficult we will look at how to get rid of all the things holding you back that you normally bring into the room with you.

You want to do your speech well, so your mind will set high expectations for a good result. However your mind does not realise that by doing this it creates a huge potential for stress. The positive intention of having high expectations for a good result can quickly become a negative that will work against you. If you are prepared to speak naturally, without any particular expectations, the likelihood of stress reduces, and the likelihood of success increases. Doing a speech in reality is much different than doing one in your mind. This does not mean that you should not practice at all in your mind, however it does mean that you should practice in a way that will actually prepare you for the event itself rather than just raising your expectations of success.

Successful presentation is totally dependent upon self-image. Your self-image is not something that you are able to perceive fully consciously — it often regulates your actions on a subconscious level. Thus, when we practice in the mind, we will be working on changing your self-image so that it works with you when the time of the speech comes. If you try to change your self-image on the day it will not be much use, likewise if you totally ignore your self-image during a practice then your practice won't be much help towards when the actual speech is delivered. In addition, improving your public speaking self-image now will mean that you need less practice with each future speech as you become more and more successful at changing the the result by changing the attributes you take into the room with you from negative to positive.

You've already made up your mind about how successful your speech will be long before you even knew that you would be doing it. You already have in an inner notion of the result prior to it happening. However rather than analysing the mechanisms of your subconscious mind, we can simply work on placing an inner result into your mind that is desirable for you. Once you observe this result as being successful, your subconsciousness will automatically replace all the other destructive results that were there before. Does that make sense? If we are doing a particular action over and over then we know no better method to do that action, but as soon as we show our mind a better method the old one fades from practice easier than attempting to remove it without offering something as a substitute.