Chances are you will always be your harshest critic. However what is important when you review your own speech is turning your criticism into constructive criticism. Reviewing your own speech should be a helpful exercise which allows you to improve yourself, not an exercise in self-loathing.
Hopefully, you will be lucky enough to be able to get a recording of yourself performing a speech, either to an audience or just to a camera.
Here are three easy ways to review and improve your own speech:
- Your voice
Most people dislike how they sound when recorded, it is natural as we hear ourselves in a different way to how we actually sound. This often makes for an unpleasant surprise. However, you will need to go beyond this to truly critique your performance.
– Does your voice carry authority and confidence?
– Do you sound overly nervous or squeaky?
– What do you need to do to make your voice be able to convey the message you are explaining?
- Your body language
Using video is your opportunity to review your body language. Body language is not just eye contact, but also the subtle hints and movements which make up an overall image of yourself. Does your face remain expressionless and blank or is there clear emotion and energy in it? Do you move around the stage too much to the point of distraction, or do you stay painfully still? Take note of what you do with your hands – punctuating your points with hand gestures is good, flapping them about is not.
- Your audience
If you have footage of yourself speaking in front of an audience look at how the audience react. Do your audience seem engaged or just bored? Do you allow them enough time to respond or digest what has just been said? When you are up on that stage with the lights in your face you can often feel disconnected to your audience. Reviewing the footage afterwards can allow you to find out what they really thought.
Remember to not be overly critical when reviewing your own speech, though this is probably difficult to do. Bear in mind that improving your public speaking performance is a learning curve and the greatest way to improve is to practise, review and try it again.
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