On Friday I ran my first live online event, Silencing Your Inner Critic. 15 people had registered, I had reviewed my material thoroughly and felt confident and excited about the event. 

Of course these things never quite go to plan and after about 7 minutes of chatting away I realised that no one could hear me speak. Luckily my audience was very patient and no one had left the event. I pressed the right buttons so everyone could hear me and I started again. 

After the event a few people told me I didn’t look fazed at all about the hiccup. Here’s how I prepared for the event and how I tackled the situation when things went wrong.

Feeling confident about the topic makes all the difference when it comes to the big day. Write, review and edit your content well in advance. Take a few days’ break and then review again, check if it flows and, if you use slides, make sure they work with your content and the order makes sense. 

In the week leading up to the event I start practising the content out loud. I do this for a few different reasons;

memorise what I want to say, practise my tonality and talking speed, and check if there are any tongue twisters I might want to revisit to make things as simple as possible for myself on the day. 

If things don’t go to plan you’re less likely to panic if you feel confident about your content.

We are all different, learn in different ways and think differently. When you write your content and you can say that you deliver something for each of these groups you’re likely onto a winner and will keep your audience engaged throughout: 

The Why? group learn best by discussing the reasons why. They want to know why something is worth doing why would we need to know this stuff? They like to explore the reasons for taking action before actually doing so, and will only truly engage when they understand 

The What people are happiest when there is so much information and they are frantically making notes but they can't write fast enough to keep up! They enjoy facts, figures, and statistics. 

The How group learn best by doing, they are not too bothered about the theory, they want to be trying things out. Doing some interactive elements will satisfy this group of people. 

And then we have the What If? people who learn best through self discovery. They will be asking themselves, what are the opportunities around what I am learning here, that nobody has ever thought of before? Expect brilliant exploring questions from this group. 

I use a few tricks to manage my nervousness just before I have to give a talk:

• Breathing - breathe in Confidence, breathe out doubt. Say the words in your head as you breathe to calm your heart rate and allow your body to rest 
• Stop negative thinking - putting the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth will disrupt spiralling critical thoughts and give you a chance to reframe
• Visualise - think how brilliant you are going to feel when the presentation is finished and everything has gone well! Connect with the emotion and allow it to sit in your body 
  

Do you feel nervous about public speaking? Working with a coach can help give you the confidence you want - why not book a consultation?