HOW TO PRACTICE FOR A SPEECH

 HOW TO PRACTICE FOR A SPEECH

The way you practice a presentation directly influences the outcome. 

So let's get into the five ways that I recommend you practice for a speech.

1. PRACTICE FROM AN OUTLINE: Not word for word notes. You must practice it from an outline, a bare bones outline. If you want to sound conversational, which is really what your listeners want from you. They don't want to read your speech, they don't want to sound like you've memorized it. They want a conversation. And the way to get there is this. You take whatever notes you have to prepare at first, your first few drafts, and then you just keep cutting them down over and over again every time you practice until all you left with is a bulleted outline of your key points that you are going to hit. And that way you have a safety net to fall back on so you won't ever lose your place. You can just glance down at your notes and then bounce your eyes right back up and present from an outline. One of the thing I will do in fact is, so I don't sound like I've memorized it, is every time I practice, I might say it a little differently on purpose so that I'm not tempted to memorize.

2. SPREAD OUT PRACTICE SESSIONS OVER TIME: The idea is to practice about three times each day over those three days. I like to practice about 10 times before I stand up and speak and it's really easy to do if you spread it out. A lot of great things happen when you spread out your practice sessions. The first thing that happen to me is if my earliest few practice sessions don't go so well, there is time to work out these kinks. Another great thing that happen is let us say i practice it three times and then I sleep on it. Oftentimes, in the middle of the day I am doing other things, I am washing dishes, my brain keeps working on it and keeps figuring out better ways to say something or a quicker way to get to the point. So in that downtime I believe that our brains are still working on it and we benefit from that downtime as well. The other great thing about breaking up your practice sessions is it helps me with my composure in the moment. I've been doing this presentation for days. So it really helps me stay composed and in the moment. So spread out those practice sessions three times a day over three days. That usually is about what you need. 

3. FOCUS ON JUST 1 OR 2 IMPROVEMENTS EACH TIME YOU PRACTICE: So you might just work on your structure and your outline in the first times, through, that's normal. The next few times through just pick one or two things, and go work on looking up from  my outline, eye contact. Every time you practice, add one or two things you wanna improve on because when you add too many things all at once, when you try to get it perfect every time you practice, you are going to get paralyzed because you can't really improve more than one thing, or may be two things, in any given practice session so focus on improvements and then start checking those off the list. And then your fundamentals will be all in place by the time you actually stand up to present. 

4. KEEP PRACTICING REALISTIC: The whole time you practice isolate yourself completely and make conditions perfect. Because what ends up happening in the moment of your actual presentation is it won't go perfectly. People will walk in late or they will get up to use the bathroom or there will be somebody with lawn mower outside your window. So after a few times practicing alone what I end up doing, when I practice, I add distractions on purpose. Even if something weird or odd happens, it won't throw me off as much. So keep practicing sessions realistic. 

5. VISUALIZE FIRST AND LAST 30 SECONDS: So by visualization I mean the way a sports athlete does it. So you picture yourself walking up through that first 30 seconds of the moment, starting off your presentation and the last seconds how you are gonna close. So athletes do this with great success. There is a study by Laure Ecard published in the 1980s and a lot of other studies like it on basketball free throw shooting and they found people that only visualized actually did improve a little bit. People who practiced free throws, basketball free throws improved a little more. But athletes who did both, they visualized and they practiced, did the most improvement out of any of the groups. So by visualizing the first 30 seconds and last 30 seconds you are going to be boosting your overall performance up quite a bit even if you don't get to practice it a few extra sessions. 

So question of the day, how do you recommend practicing your speech that helps you the most? I would love to hear your thoughts on what helps you in that section below in the comment section. I look forward to reading them.