Public Speaking - How Did I Do?

Following on from my last post “Public Speaking; Can It Ever Be Enjoyable?”, I’d like to talk about something that is I feel an essential part of feeling comfortable with speaking in front of others and that is balanced self-assessment after giving a presentation, speech, performance, introducing yourself, speaking up in a meeting and so on. Being able to honestly assess oneself means not only that we can appreciate ourselves for what we have done well, but also that we can take away any learnings and use them to prepare for and execute our next performance.

If we are in a state of high anxiety when speaking publicly this kind of balanced self-assessment becomes almost impossible. We are most likely to assess ourselves negatively in fact, homing in on our nerves and endowing our audience with negative perceptions of us.

This is because when we are highly anxious the fight/flight mechanism is fully active, which is why during the speech we might experience palpitations, sweaty palms, shaking voice, muscle tension and other signs of agitation. The mind will tend to be foggy because blood is being pumped away from non-essential functions (you don’t need to be able to think when you need to run away or stay and fight). And you can be sure that if your brain has been unable to function maximally for you during your time of speaking publicly, it won’t be able to do so after the event.

When you deal with your fear of public speaking, your ability to not only perform in the way you want to at the time but also your facility in being able to appropriately assess your performance afterwards, increases. How much better to be able to experience that than put yourself through some terrible self-flagellation.