Speaking with Confidence

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Speaking with Confidence

• Chapter 2

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Speaking with Confidence

• When is your anxiety strongest?
• Right before the speech
• Usually strongest
• When the assignment is given
• Usually second strongest point of anxiety
• Anxiety often decreases once speech begins
• Nerves often appear before big activity
• Sports competitions
• Weddings
• Moving

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• Psychology affects biology
• Anxiety created by
• View of speaking assignment
• Perception of your own skill
• Level of self esteem

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Speaking with Confidence

• Understand Nervousness
• Anxiety is created by
• Fear of humiliation
• Not being prepared
• Worry about looks/appearance
• Pressure to perform
• Other causes of anxiety
• Fear of being boring
• Lack of experience
• Fear of mistakes
• Fear of failure

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Speaking with Confidence

• 4 styles of communication apprehension
• Average Positive approach to communicating in
  public
• Insensitive Often associated with experienced
  speakers
• Inflexible Continuous increased heart rate when
  speaking publicly
• Confrontational High heart rate that goes down
  during speech
• Knowing communication style helps manage anxiety

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Speaking with Confidence

• How you look vs how you feel
• You are going to feel more nervous than you look
• What are some symptoms of speech anxiety?
• Are all these symptoms visible to your audience?

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Speaking with Confidence

• How to build your confidence as a speaker
• Things you can do to manage speech anxiety
• Before speech
• Dont procrastinate in preparing speech
• Leads to Self fulfilling prophecy
• Know audience
• Familiarity with audience will help reduce anxiety

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Speaking with Confidence

• How to build your confidence
• Select appropriate topic
• Familiar/comfortable topics reduce anxiety
• What are things you are interested in?
• Is it easier to talk about them?
• Be Prepared (Think about speech in advance)
• More preparation less anxiety
• Create a well organized outline
• Practice, Practice, Practice!

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Speaking with Confidence

• Building confidence
• Develop deliver well-organized speech
• Speeches have a Beginning, Middle, End
• Should follow a logical outline pattern
• Know intro close
• Anxiety often at the beginning
• Know opening to help start strong
• Conclude with a lasting/final thought
• Start Strong / End Strong

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Speaking with Confidence

• How to build confidence
• Re-create speech environment during practice
• You want practice to be as close to presentation
  as possible
• Use deep breathing techniques
• To balanceth e changes in breathing and heart
  rate that occur when you get nervous
• Also helps to relax

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Speaking with Confidence

• How to build your confidence
• Channel your nervous energy
• Adrenaline can cause nervous movement
• Use movement to channel nervous energy
• Visualize your success
• Control anxiety by imagining success
• Visualizing stages in speech beforehand
• To help as you reach them

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Speaking with Confidence

• How to build your confidence
• Give yourself a mental pep talk
• Self reassurance can work wonders for confidence
• Positive self talk
• Negative Self Talk
• Focus on message not on fear
• More thoughts about nervousness
• Increases anxiety
• Think about whats coming up
• Not about how you feel

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Speaking with Confidence

• How to build confidence
• Look for positive listener support
• Positive feedback helps reduce anxiety
• Negative feedback may increase anxiety
• Seek Speaking opportunities
• More speaking more comfort
• Become a better more seasoned speaker

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Speaking with Confidence

• How to build your confidence
• After speech,
• Focus on accomplishment, not on you anxiety
• Reviewing the speech based on your successes
• Will create a positive memory of the experience