Do you have an important presentation or a personal meeting with someone high-profile in the next couple of days? Does the meeting make you feel restless and anxious?
If yes, you’re not alone. Almost everyone experiences the same kind of restlessness before important meetings.
Even the best of the best such as Eric Schmidt, Tim Cook, Satya Nadella are going to experience some kind of anxiousness before presenting their ideas at conferences and press releases.
But the successful people don’t let their nervousness stop them and hold them back. Instead, they perform specific confidence-boosting rituals just before their big day. So on the big day, they are able to speak on their feet and stun audiences.
True confidence is something that requires patience and constant practice. It’s not something that you can fix overnight. If you’ve never spoken in public before, there’s just no way that you’ll be able to fully feel confident about the activity.
But through preparation and by doing the right rituals just before your talk, you can beat anxiety and present effectively. You might even end up stunning your audience.
With that said, here are 3 quick and easy steps you can take to beat your anxiety and rock your presentation or meeting…
Exercise Your Way Out Of Nervousness:
When you’re busy worrying about what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it, your body will go on an overdrive and start producing excess of cortisol.
Here’s why this happens:
Your presentation or meeting is something that is outside your comfort zone. It’s not something that you normally do. It’s something that you’ve never done before or have only done a couple of times.
So your mind tries to protect you. Our internal defence mechanism kicks in and puts you in the flight or fight mode. This leads to increased cortisol production.
It’s very detrimental. Increased levels of cortisol heighten your emotions, limit your creativity and reduce your ability to process complex information.
And that’s a death-nail in your dream to rock your presentation. If your anxiety isn’t letting you process complex information, you might as well skip the presentation altogether.
That’s where exercise comes in handy. High intensity exercise done by you for a few minutes will negate the cortisol secretion and put you in a calm, peaceful state.
Any form of exercise that makes you uncomfortable, gets your heart racing and has you sweating is a good choice. It can be swimming, cycling, running, ultra-fast walking or a combination.
Emotionally Center Yourself:
One of the best ways to beat the anxiety before presenting is by conditioning your emotions. Most people spend all of their time preparing themselves for the meeting and don’t think about conditioning their emotions.
So when they do come out to give the speech, they become overwhelmed by the crowd and start to feel anxious.
That’s why I always encourage my clients to invest a few minutes each day conditioning their emotions at least a week or two before their talk.
When you condition your emotions, you are technically teaching your body to “FEEL” a certain way just before your presentation.
Here’s how this is done:
Self-Talk: Use positive statements and tell yourself about how well you’ve prepared and how you’re going to nail the presentation
Visualization: Visualize yourself feeling incredibly great just before you start speaking and giving a great talk
The key to conditioning your emotions is to stay upbeat and be repetitive. Make sure you’re working on these things at least 1 – 2 weeks before your big day.
Work On Plan B:
There are some occasions where things don’t go the way you want it to. What if your audience is not receptive to your speech? Or what if someone asks a question that you don’t have an answer to?
There are so many things that can go wrong. And by only having one plan, you can end up floundering your opportunity.
In order to prevent this, it’s important to develop a PLAN B. Your PLAN B can include things like:
- If you aren’t able to present on the big day, it’d be appropriate to have your friend do the introduction and present the first few minutes.
- A short talk that you can memorize and speak for the first 2 – 3 minutes to help you get in the zone.
- An exit strategy. If you aren’t able to summon your emotions and channelize it effectively, give a quick 2 minute talk and exit.
- Walking around the entire podium to beat your anxiety while you give your talk
- Getting the audience to introduce themselves
Most people will lose all faith they have in themselves when their PLAN A fails. But by developing PLAN B, you can ensure that you stay on course towards your goals.
If you’re really serious about increasing your self-confidence and beating your anxiety, then go here right now:
Strategy Call
Working with a professional coach who can listen to your frustrations non-judgmentally and support you can help you get results faster.
Besides working with clients 1 on 1, I also engage with corporate teams through my Group Coaching Sessions.
Through these sessions, your team will learn how to make powerful changes to their current engagement so they can tremendously improve performance. In my personal Intervention, I will help them…
- Develop a systematic plan to boost their confidence
- Install clear road maps for creating goals at the subconscious level
- Channelize their energy and improve their overall productivity
Are you an executive who’s looking to increase your team’s overall productivity? Then go here right now to get in touch with me…
Strategic Intervention
Yours Sincerely,
Satish Rao