Part 7: The 3 Ps

You wouldn't throw fuel on a fire, but that's exactly what we do when it
comes to our speaking anxiety. Many of us do things that make our
anxiety worse. I'd like to introduce you to what I call the three Ps. These
are the three things that we do that often make our anxiety more
intense. And let's talk about things that we can do to reduce those
behaviors.

The first has to do with procrastination. Many of us don't like the

feeling of being nervous when presenting, so we just put off our
preparation. The problem, of course, is as our presentation gets closer
we end up getting more and more nervous. So we need to reduce our
procrastination. There are two things you can do. First, publicly commit
to a schedule. I like to have a simple rule, take the time from today to
when it is that you're delivering your presentation. Simply divide it in
half. The first half should be spent creating your content. That includes
any slides if you'll have them. And then the second part has to do with
actually practicing, standing up and speaking out your content. Publicly
commit to that schedule, share it with your work colleagues, put it in
your public calendar, heck, post it on your refrigerator. By having it
publicly committed you are much more likely to follow through with it.
Second, reward yourself as you hit each step or milestone in your plan.
Maybe after you create your outline you go for a walk or you have your
favorite cake or watch some Netflix show. By rewarding yourself you
actually reinforce the fact that you're making progress on your plan.

Procrastination is our first P. The second has to do with perfectionism.

Many of us want our communication to be just right. Now I've been
doing this work for a long time and I am here to tell you that there is no
right way to communicate. There are better and worse, but there is no
one right way. So we need to break this habit of striving for
perfectionism. And a way to do that is to change your focus. Instead of
focusing on everything that you're doing, put that energy towards your
audience. Having an audience-centric approach to your communication
reduces this perfectionism need and actually makes your
communication more engaging and relevant to your audience.

So with procrastination and perfectionism dealt with the final of our

three Ps has to do with PowerPoint. Well, it's not PowerPoint in
specific, it's slides in general. Many of us when we create presentations
or meetings focus all of our energy in creating slides. But slides aren't
our story. We need to break this habit. Start with your story first,
what's your message? What are you trying to convey or convince
people of? Craft that first and then, and only then ask: would slides
help? By putting story first and slides second you actually give yourself
the tools you need to present confidentially, because you have a story
to tell. Taken together, working to counteract these three Ps of
procrastination, perfectionism, and PowerPoint we can improve our
confidence, reduce our anxiety, and ultimately be much better
communicators.