Confidence

Confidence is inextricably linked with conviction.

To boost general confidence there are a myriad of different techniques, which you can use.  One is the ‘I like me because….’ method.  For one minute every morning, stand in front of the mirror and say ‘I like me because …’ and follow it by as many different reasons why you like yourself.  ‘I like me because I am blonde’, ‘I like me because I am good at my job’, ‘I like me because I’m a good Dad’, ‘I like me because I’m not too overweight’, ‘I like me because I have given up smoking’, ‘I like me because I can drive’.  If you cannot think of anything else just make things up but keep going, saying as many things as you can in the minute.  If you do this every morning, you will get better at it and it will improve your own self-confidence.

Another technique to use before a presentation is to say aloud the following statements before anyone arrives in the room:

‘I am poised, prepared, persuasive, positive and powerful.’

‘I feel composed, confident convincing, commanding and compelling.’

Write these two phrases on your first Cue Card.

Confidence is all a matter of self-belief.  You need to believe in yourself and you will be more confident, and come across as confident.  Do not over do it though.  Do not talk down to your audience they will never forgive you!

Eleanor Roosevelt said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior unless you agree with it’.

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Conviction

‘It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.’  Anon

To make people to believe in you, you have to belief in yourself first.  You need to talk as if you mean it. 

Leave out all those phrases like ‘I think….’ and ‘Perhaps …’ be more definite. Instead of saying, ‘I think, if we worked together we could probably achieve our goal’ say, ‘Together, we can achieve our goal’, ‘In fact, we can exceed it!’

When it comes down to it, if you do not believe it yourself, you will never get others to believe it.

There are three aspects to a presentation the verbal, the vocal and the visual, i.e. the words we use, the way we say them and what we do while we say them.

When we say words with out really believing what we say, our tone of voice and our body language will give the game away. Everyone will be able to tell that we don’t really mean it. So my advice is to only give presentations on subjects about which you are confident.

If you are ever forced in to giving a presentation on a topic which you are not sure about, find one aspect of that topic you are confident of and give the presentation from that perspective.

Presentation Training and Coaching is available from the author of this blog. Please visit my presentation training  website.

Give me a day and I’ll change your presentations, forever