I find presentations/public speaking very difficult. How can I improve?

LegacyUser

I have a major problem with presentations/public speaking. I hate being the center of attention, I'm a little quiet . I'm in college I've done so many presentations at least 4/5 , I'm always faced with the same issues everytime no matter how hard I try. I always have a powerpoint slides.
I usually start talking and then my voice starts to get shaky, I go blank , then I start to read the points I usually have an idea of what I'm going to say but I always go blank so then when I do remember something the words come out rambly . This happens for every point until eventually I give up an just read from the slides because my voice is shaky and my mind is going blank with the words not coming out right.
I've tried everything even when I try to be as relaxed as possible or standing up straight or imaging being a well known presenter nothing works. It's getting to the point where I'd rather just skip the presentation an lose the marks.
I have more presentations next semester . It doesn't matter if I'm on my own or in a group the same thing happens. I'm tempted to drink alcohol before to take my mind off things .

Stheno

Couple of things.

1. Think of yourself as just the medium being used to deliver the message, people are focusing on the presentation and not necessarily on you.
2. Practice on your own, in front of a mirror etc.
3. Cut your presentation down into chunks of a couple of minutes/certain number of slides and use index cards to help you.
4. Or use Presenter view, with large notes in the notes section to guide you along

HTH

Ann84

I'm not at all affiliated with them, but try Toastmasters... I know a number of people who found it very good!

Chara1001

Hi OP,

I've had to do a lot of public speaking in my time, and it gets easier the more you do it. I know it takes a massive surge of willpower and it can be crippling for people.
But one thing that helps is to remember the people you are talking to are not looking for you to falter- they just want the information you have to give them. If they see your nerves showing through, they are on your side and willing you to get through it. Also, if you're giving the info, you're the one that knows the most about the subject.

It might help if you pick a few people in the audience, make eye contact with them and deliver your talk mostly to these 3/ 4 people- the numbers in the background could fade away a bit, and it might seem as though you're speaking to a lot less people than are actually there.
Do not skip the presentation under any circumstances- this will only make it worse for you to do the next one, and the one after that.

Hope that helps and best of luck:)

jellyboy

find an improv group or even better a course of improv classes ..
if your in dublin I'm sure theres drop in classes,or as anther poster said toastmasters

if you over think it ,it will get worse

Zen 2nd

I've a few tips I've picked up while doing presentations.

Your presentation should only have 4 to 5 points per slide and then you should elaborate each point in speech.

Write down what you want to say on notecards and use them if you get stuck to get you back on track.

Take a small pause after every full stop. It may seem weird in your head as time appears to be going twice as normal but it is perfectly natural.

Figure out what you want to do with your hands. Generally don't wave them about or have them in your pockets. Usually you can have them out in front of you like you are about to hug someone.

Bring water. If you feel like you are tripping over yourself, take a drink and compose yourself.

You can generally stare at a person for about 5 to 10 seconds before you freak them out so be sure to move your eyes from person to person.

Smile! Presentations are boring enough without the presenter looking totally bored themselves.

Some people use humour at the start of the presentation to lighten the mood but this is entirely based on what the target audience is.

When you have your presentation ready, read it out loud to yourself as you may notice that certain things don't work when spoken out loud.

The most important thing to remember is to take your time. Everyone feels nervous when they have to get up in front of people but then statisically a lot of people aren't even listening or are off in la la land when watching a presentation.

Sleepy

Practice. Practice. Practice.

In my interview for my current job one of my interviewers was a sales director and despite my telling him in no certain terms that I was a technical consultant rather than a salesman, I found myself doing software demonstrations as part of my job within a couple of weeks of starting. I was absolutely terrified.

After a few years of doing this type of thing, I'd be happy to stand up in front of virtually any crowd and speak to them. There's simply no substitute for experience.

Preparation comes close though: prepare your presentation, not just your powerpoint document. I'll take 2 hours prep and 15 minutes to do the powerpoint over the opposite any day of the week. And have a backup plan: keep copies of the presentation on a memory stick as well as your laptop. If there's an overhead projector available, have acetates of your slides as a backup and (if your presentation skills are what's being graded) handouts of your slides for your audience.

If you have a friend who's good at it, ask them to listen to your presentation and give you feedback at the end. The aforementioned Sales director critiqued every presentation I gave for about 6 months: after the first month he didn't feel it was necessary but did it at my request because I knew he was excellent "in the room" and I wanted to learn as much as I could from his 30+ years of experience. If you've no-one you can ask, stand up in your room with your laptop open behind you and speak to an imaginary audience. Yes, you'll feel like a total twat but it'll benefit you enormously. If you trip up, try come up with a recovery whilst remaining standing and continue to the end. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

After 5/6 runs through you'll find you can get through it almost perfectly. The pressure of being in front of an audience might trip you up but because your practice will have included recoveries instead of just starting over each time you screwed up, you'll recover better when it counts. I'd have it down to 1/2 runs at this stage but that's after giving very similar presentations a couple of hundred times.

There's very, very rarely an audience you'll be presenting to that doesn't want you to succeed. Even if they're judging you or your pitch, they're on your side: they want you to do well.

LegacyUser

hey star 121,

this might seem a little off topic but how's your self esteem and confidence in general?.....and do you know the reason why you hate being the centre of attention? I asked these questions because they might be linked to why you find presenting in front of others so hard.

iusedtoknow

I used to hate talking on the phone...my first proper job was a call center
I used to hate giving presentations...now i give at least 2 a month and speak at conferences. I still get a knot thinking about doing them, but I have overcome it

1. Write the story first, then make the slides. I don't know what field you're in, but in my side of IT (service management) the "story" is important. I generally will write out what I want to communicate in paragraph form (1 paragraph, 1 slide). This gives an idea of how your presentation flows. It will also force you make your presentation fit around your narrative, rather than the other way

2. With your slides, use them as a jumping off point, do not just narrate what is on the slides - this will make your presentation more interesting to others, and you will go off their energy.

3. Do not try to be funny or crack jokes. People aren't coming to see a comedian, they are coming for your information. Don't put any pressure on yourself to be funny.

4. Practice...my cat is my harshest critic . Once I have everything sorted I practice on him. It sounds stupid, but having something, anything to practice against helps get the flow sorted.

5. Use presentation mode to have notes on your device about what your discussion points are on each slide. Use note cards as well. Do not try and remember everything - not even ceo's do this. I have seen Tim Cook and Larry Page present, while delivered flawlessly, they both had notes and in one case a teleprompter to help them.

Starokan

Practice is your friend, the more you practice the better you will deliver the speech. I am hugely nervous of public speaking and it always helped me to continuously practice before hand.

You can pick up some herbal solutions in any pharmacy like Rescue Remedy, people often use it before driving tests I believe, I have used it prior to public speaking and it seemed to help

LegacyUser

hjhbjbjkooo wrote: »

hey star 121,

this might seem a little off topic but how's your self esteem and confidence in general?.....and do you know the reason why you hate being the centre of attention? I asked these questions because they might be linked to why you find presenting in front of others so hard.

I'm confident in my self esteem when I'm around less people with more people I'm less confident. I just don't like attention from many people I avoid being the centre of attention or I'd feel like people may be judging. It doesn't matter how many people are in the room I've done some just in front of lecturers with only 2/3 people I still mess up. My voice is soft so I'm not used to projecting my voice .

LegacyUser

I do a business course so there's no way of avoiding presentations , this is the only course I'm interested in.
Even the career direction I plan to go into afterwards either digital marketing/marketing or fashion buyer will need strong communication and presentation skills.

I don't usually write word for word what I'm going to say I usually have bullet points in which I elaborate from reading the points. I just learn the topic well I don't learn word for word what I'll say when I elaborate as I'll get stuck if I mess up the words. Still even when I try to elaborate the points I just can't seem to put the words together at the time . I didn't practise that much just read over the material a little.

Citygirl1

Hi. I see it has been mentioned twice already, but I would also recommend getting involved with a Toastmasters club.

I have been a member of Toastmasters for over two years now, and it has definitely helped my oral presentation skills, and ability to stand up and speak in front of a group.

The meetings involve both impromptu speaking (speaking off the cuff on a topic for 1-2 minutes) and prepared speeches (generally 5-7 minutes).

If you start going to meetings you can get involved quite gradually, by maybe reciting a poem. The first point of all these exercises is just to get up, and talk, then learn how to organise your speech etc. Practice is definitely better than theory in this case.

I have also found it to be a very supportive, and friendly environment. There will be some very good speakers, and they are great to listen to, but don't worry about this. The clubs are there to support struggling speakers!

I used to have a problem (and still do at times) of becoming so nervous when speaking at work, that my throat feels like it is closing up, and I can't breath. Two simple things I have found helpful are:

• Take deep calming breaths before starting to speak, and remember to breath throughout. This also has the effect of slowing you down and reducing the feeling of panic.
• Keep a bottle of water to hand, for if your throat dries up, and don't worry about pausing to take a quick drink.

ted1

I have a speech impediment so am naturally nervous giving public speeches as I'm conscious that people would have a clue what, I' saying.

However in the past few years I've ended up training people how use software and giving presentations on energy usage.

I'm also doing a part time masters which involves plenty if presentations.

The best advice is to know the **** out of what your talking about. Be confident that you know exactly what your talking about and can answer any question out to you.

With regards the speaking, I use my hands to pace myself kind of the way the head of an orchestra does. It works and doesn't look silly.

Finally glance around the room, see if people are following you if they are keep it up, if not the move on to the next topic ASAP or field questions to win the crowd back

SPM1959

Ann84 wrote: »

I'm not at all affiliated with them, but try Toastmasters... I know a number of people who found it very good!

I need to join them myself. Keep procrastinating though! Out of fear and laziness.

Practice is the key and toastsmasters will allow you (and me!) to pracitice in a very safe and supportive enviroment.

LegacyUser

Get and read the book by Emma Ledden called The Presentation Book. It's great!

SpaceTime

Might I suggest joining a community or college radio station. You can learn to present without having to see your audience.

After a while you'll get more confidence about presenting to a physically visible group.

It's all about practice. A lot of actors and musicians get stage fright. Overcoming it is all just about doing it again and again until suddenly you stop feeling nervous.

Stheno

SpaceTime wrote: »

It's all about practice. A lot of actors and musicians get stage fright. Overcoming it is all just about doing it again and again until suddenly you stop feeling nervous.

I'd echo this tbh.

I spend over 60% of my current work week presenting. Other posters have said other stuff that I find helpful, like preparation, practice etc.

I was there today delivering a presentation I last delivered a year and a half ago, and for some reason got stuck on the word "seperate", three tries later, a bit of poking fun at myself (it was a 6 hour presentation) and I managed to pronounce it

Part of presenting is acknowledging that you will make mistakes in public which will earn you scrorn, another is making fun of the mistakes you make and using that to engage your audience.

I was at a conference recently, and the post lunch presentations (two) were dreadful.

The first was way too arrogant, the second was a slide reader followed by "ok?"

Like another person said turn your presentation into a story, and to take that further, take about real life examples, and use presenter view/notes to expand on those, like sleepy said the prep makes all the difference.

I would spend up to four hours preparing for a 1 hour presentation, even now after 5 years of doing them, but is means I do them without any obvious aids.

LegacyUser

They haven't got a college radio where I go it's a smallish place.
Would it be okay to drink a glass of something before a presentation?
I wouldn't get drunk or anything just one glass to relax me a little to take my mind off it or would I become too reliant on it?
I can't look at anyone while presenting although I hate looking people when we're talking in a group normally I'm uncomfortable with making eye contact sometimes.

I'd love to practise I'd feel weird talking to a empty room would it be stupid to practise on a animal? I won't have one until next semester in marketing I'm almost certain they'll be a presentation . Sometimes I find it easier presenting alone than with a group as it's just you an you aren't waiting for the person to finish their part before you speak . I remember one of my presentations last year the presentation was on a product we made up I chose to work alone rather than in a group. At the start I was a little nervous towards the end I was more confident an when the lecturer was asking questions at the I found it easier an I was able to talk a little more confidently.

Sleepy

Everyone feels weird talking to an empty room but it's the best preparation you can do for a presentation aside from presenting to colleagues/friends/family first (and even then, tbh, I'd have done a couple of run-throughs to an empty boardroom for practice.

Any alcohol beforehand is a bad idea.

There's really no shortcuts or silver bullets here. Just practice, practice, practice.

SpaceTime

Might not be a college station, check around for a local community one though!

http://www.craol.ie/4/0/radio-stations.html

Stavro Mueller

The first time I did a presentation in college I thought it'd be grand. Just stand up there, know what was on the slides and the words would come easily. I think you know where this is going... (hint: car crash )

Really, the best way to manage these sorts of presentations is preparation. Get yourself some cards - some sort of postcard sized ones will do - and write some bullet points on them. Jut down the main points you need to make and key phrases. It'll help keep a structure to what you're talking about and make sure you don't miss out on saying things you need to say.

And secondly...practice, practice practice. When you first give presentations, they do sound ridiculous to your ears when you're talking out loud. If possible, get a friend to sit in on your mock presentation and give pointers. If you can't face into that, then the empty room with the cat will work too. Get comfortable at standing up in a room with the laptop in front of you and the projector screen beside you.

It would be helpful to have a friend watch you give the test presentation because just about everyone has habits that can be nipped in the bud. Try not to shuffle your feet, stare at the floor, mumble or be monotonous in your delivery. If you can manage it, try to make eye contact with your audience, build in little anecdotes to what you're talking about and act like you're talking to them, not at them.

Watch out too for the slides you're putting up. Don't put too much information on them or there'll be overload. Keep them simple.

clairefontaine

You have one responsibility, and that is to deliver the information.

Focus on that.

All of your self consciousness is based on imaginary thoughts about what the audience is thinking. This is pure fantasy. Get rational about it.

Practise vocalisation at home. Start with the first line of a poem or a song, whatever you prefer. Face the wall, speak the sentence. Take a foot step backwards, speak it again, so the wall can hear you, and another step backwards, and say it again, that bit louder, and keep going until you reach the other side of the room, raising your voice without shouting, so the wall can hear you.

Remember to breathe down from the belly and not from the top of your lungs. If you have to imagine the breath has a color and you are taking it ans escorting it up to our vocal chords. You will get much more resonant vibrations and better vocal projection.

After you have done this small excersize, do the same thing with your presentation at the opposite end of the room. If you have a family or friend, get them to help you. Get one of them to be deliberately fidgety, smirky, doodling, yawning, etc so that you can get past any possible distractions and overlook it. There is always one asshole picking their nose or texting on Facebook.

Pacing. You will likely speak too fast because you are nervous and want to get it over with. Be mindful and take your time, land on words where you can pull focus in back on you.

Confidence really means you trust yourself. If you trust yourself, your words will carry more attention.

Anxiety is contagious and spreads in a room. No matter how intelligent your presentation is, if you are anxious, it will spread and they will feel anxious.

Fake it till you make it.

begod

Had the same problem, no matter what I tried the nerves took over and I couldn't control them. Went to a hypnotherapist and it was brilliant.

I couldn't believe it, I spoke freely without any nerves and actualy really enjoyed giving the presentation. The lecturer said I was like a different person. No problems since.

The hypnotherapist said she had worked with well known politicians, lawyers, accountants before public speaking, presentations etc.

However it doesn't work for everyone, apparently I'm very easy to hypnotize.

AtticusFinch86

I'd echo some of the things said here. I was absolutely shockingly bad at presenting in my first and second year. I was so nervous about them that I'd have sleepless nights for 2-3 days beforehand. I even tried drinking a quarter bottle of vodka a couple of times before the presentation and I won't lie, it helped in the run up to the presentation itself i.e. I wasn't nervous before I got up, but in truth, I don't think it helped at all once I started talking, I was the same bumbling fool.

I always knew the subject but couldn't get the information out of my mouth in any coherent way. In third year I made a big effort to fix the problem. I'd write out what exactly I wanted to say and I started practicing it for a few hours the night before. I'd usually practice at least 8-9 times (most of my presentations were under 10 minutes) to get it nailed. I kept doing that for every presentation and eventually I got to the stage where I was one of the best presenters in the class. As you start to see an improvement yourself you begin to get more belief in yourself and that then further spurs you on. I was even asked to represent the college in a national competition in 4th year, so that's a measure of how far I came. I'd put that huge jump almost solely down to taking the time to practice, practice, practice.

PS a well structured powerpoint with appropriate bullet points also helps a lot. A powerpoint that's all over the place will only confuse you.

Jordans n Timbs

begod wrote: »

Had the same problem, no matter what I tried the nerves took over and I couldn't control them. Went to a hypnotherapist and it was brilliant.

I couldn't believe it, I spoke freely without any nerves and actualy really enjoyed giving the presentation. The lecturer said I was like a different person. No problems since.

The hypnotherapist said she had worked with well known politicians, lawyers, accountants before public speaking, presentations etc.

However it doesn't work for everyone, apparently I'm very easy to hypnotize.

Mind sharing who this person was ?

MissFlitworth

star121 wrote: »

Would it be okay to drink a glass of something before a presentation?
I wouldn't get drunk or anything just one glass to relax me a little to take my mind off it or would I become too reliant on it?

That's not a long term solution to your problem, you mention that you're looking at working in industries where you will always have to make presentations & speak in public, how are you going to fit in having a drink before a presentation in a working environment or when you have multiple presentations a day, have to drive before or after making a presentation, have a presentation landed on you randomly etc. Not to mention how badly it'll affect your career prospects if anyone catches wind of that fact that you need a drink to do your job. Best not to create a crutch for yourself that could severely eff things up for you in the future.

the_monkey

Hi OP,
I used to have this problem - and still I can't stand public speaking, but I manage better.

And I know it's a cliche but practise practise practise ... it really helps.

I have had to do a few workshops where I work and the 1st one I did I only practised once and really messed up, I learned my lesson and by the 2nd one ,
I made sure to practice at least 3 times.

There was a marked improvement and since then it's getting a lot better .

They are only to about 15 people, but before I couldn't make one for 5 people!!

LegacyUser

I never meant a drink all the time just that once to see if I could get to the point where i was comfortable afterwards I'd try without it.

There could be other reasons why I'm bad at presenting I'm not used to having to raise my voice loud to address many people and since I'm an only child it's that much harder.
I've been thinking of making up a character for when doing presentations to see if that helps me be more confident presenting as if I was acting. Has anyone tried that?
I don't know if it'd work.