Fake It Till You Make It

If there is one thing in my life that I excel at, it would be talking. I don't know why I love it so much. In middle school, I got the most talkative superlative. My Grandmother always tells me that she is convinced that I like hearing my own voice and that's why I talk so much. However, I would have to disagree with her and concluded that I just love having a conversation with others. As much as I love talking, I'll be the first to admit that the minute I get in front of an audience everything changes.  It's as if I forgot how to speak. My palms become sweaty, I start to stumble through my words and talk extremely fast. The thing is, though, I talk abnormally fast to begin with, so when I public speak and I become very nervous, I tend to speak 100 times faster

The thing about public speaking is that I'm not the worst public speaker known to mind kind nor am I the best. I would consider myself right in the middle. There are a few things I need to work on, however. The pace at which I speak when I'm nervous is very fast, this happens to negatively affect my speaking the most. The quicker someone talks the harder it is to understand them. So first I need to work on slowing down when I speak, and not rushing to catch my breath after every sentence. Next, I feel that I say many sentences, and go from one idea to the next but I forget to pause. I need to add pauses that effectively separate my ideas so that my audience doesn't become to overwhelmed with all the information that I am throwing at them. These are two things that I believe need to be improved in order to be a more successful public speaker.

As I mentioned before I'm not the worst public speaker known to mankind. When I speak in front of people I tend to talk pretty loud which many of my teachers have told me is a positive. Think about it when people speak quietly, you end up turning to the person sitting next to you and asking them, what are they saying? I do believe that my voice projects when I speak, which helps to engage the audience. My second greatest strength while speaking is that I tend to make eye connect with many in the audience. This also allows for those who are watching me speak to be engaged and feel connected. It's always awkward when the speaker is talking but looking over everyone's head. Then you find yourself turning around to see what the speaker is staring at. I believe that it's very important to maintain eye contact with your audience when you're giving a speech.

All and all, I believe that everyone can public speak. The reality is that everyone gets nervous when they have to talk in front of an audience. In fact, it's okay to get nervous, but when you're nervous you can't show that you're nervous. My mom always told me, that you have "to fake it till you make", and that's what I tell myself before every big speech!