Like many other people, public speaking is not my strong suit. Maybe it's due to my introverted personality, but the thought of standing up before a crowd, no matter the size, never fails to make me nervous. However, the more that I've spoken in front of others, the easier it's been for me to get up in front of the room. It's an old adage that "practice makes perfect," but in this case I think it suits my experience well.
For me, public speaking is something that I have to ease into over time. I typically start out rather nervous, and get more confident once I realize that I'm actually managing to win the audience over. Humor is a really effective way to get the audience on your side, I've found; a little joke in the beginning works wonders to help me relax.
My biggest strength is probably my voice and delivery; I prefer to maintain a conversational tone unless a speech is super professional. It helps me relax because it's one less thing to worry about, and it's easier to relate to your audience if you talk to them rather than at them. However, my body language tends to get a bit awkward, and I usually find myself doing something with my hands out of nervousness. Practicing some simple hand gestures while I speak would probably help me in this regard, since I do it naturally during conversation anyway.
Doing the civic artifact speech really helped me identify my strengths and weaknesses, and informed me a bit more about speaking at a college level. Overall, I'd say my speaking experiences thus far have been positive, and I'm eager to continue learning in the future.
Nice objective analysis of your public speaking abilities! Physicality is something that doesn't come super naturally to me either and I plan on working on it in the future as well.
ReplyDeletePublic speaking is not my thing either! I am so gald that you were able to ease into it, I am still waiting on that day :)
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