5 Steps to Finding Your Voice
Building confidence and the ability to speak in front of others
Have you ever had a brilliant idea or a passion to teach others, only to discover that you’re not confident in speaking in front of others? Worried you will say the wrong thing or freeze and not say anything at all?
The first thing you will need to do is to find your voice. When you speak in front of people you want to feel confident and comfortable. This will give you the power to portray your idea, your passion in a way that will fill everyone with understanding and excitement.
We know it can be difficult speaking in front of others. I myself remember standing in front of my class as a child shaking from head to toe. What I didn’t do enough of was practice and use some of the tips in this blog. Now I am confident speaking online, speaking in front of a group and also encouraging others to do it too. I want to be able to help you find your voice, find your confidence and have you on your way to being an amazing teacher of your passion.
Today we have 5 steps to help you find your voice, become a confident speaker/host/teacher and most importantly to love what you do for a living.
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1. Speak in Front of a Mirror
Speaking in front of a mirror is a great way to see what you’re doing, when you’re doing it. You become your own audience and your own critic. This can feel strange at first but is a great first step towards confidence and finding your voice.
Don’t focus on perfecting what you would say to a room of people, this step is just to get you used to speaking but also seeing what you’re doing when you do. Are you looking down to the ground? Eye contact with your audience is very important and will have them engaged with you and your content. Do you look stiff? People will feel relaxed when you feel relaxed to as people tend to mirror each other.
You will notice the more that you practice this method, the more comfortable you will feel and the more at ease you will look in the mirror.
2. Record Yourself
Recording yourself is a great tool. This allows you to watch yourself back and focus on every aspect of yourself. How you spoke, eye contact, body language, information you gave.
This is also a great next step towards speaking in front of other people. The camera and yourself become an audience and you are able to see what to work on and then you repeat the step again and again until you feel you’ve done it to your best of your ability.
Again, have fun with this step at first. Sure by the end of it you want to achieve the best you can, but at first have fun with it, even if you’re speaking about a film you watched this week rather then your topic. The point here is to get comfortable speaking in front of a camera and then being able to see what needs improving after your first few tries.
3. Practice in Front of Your Partner/Family/Friends
Now it’s time to start putting the skills you’ve learned during the first 2 steps to the test. You may not want to go directly to speaking in front of a room of new people and so a perfect next step is to practice in front of people close to you. Your partner, family and friends will allow you to feel more at ease when talking while at the same time getting some honest feedback.
What you will find in this step compared to the others is that you now need to be more aware of where you’re looking. Are you looking at the guests? Are you just looking in one direction?
When speaking in front of people you want to make everyone feel special, that you care about each one of them. So this will be great practice for looking at each person as you talk while also seeing their reactions. Their reactions will let you know if they’re happy, if they understand, if you are speaking loud enough.
If you are not comfortable looking directly at people when you first try this, then try to look just above their heads. This will give the impression you are looking at the people and allow you to get used to looking straight ahead rather then down at the floor which a lot of nervous people tend to do.
4. Start Doing Small Events on Meetup
Now that you are feeling more confident in your speaking and have practiced your passion you want to teach it’s time for the next step. Arrange a meetup for your first taste of teaching new people. This can be a one on one, a few people or more. It is all about what you are comfortable with and what will have you feeling the happiest.
A meetup is a great way to gain feedback and so you should make a short feedback form asking what each person thought not only about what they learned but about how you did and ask for any suggestions to make things better they might have.
At the end of the event make sure to speak to each person individually, thank them for coming and ask them if they wouldn’t mind filling in the feedback form.
5. Practice Speaking on a Stage in Front of People
Don’t worry we are not suggesting you speak in front of millions of people like Obama (although if you want to try this then go for it!).
The next step here is to find places where you can stand on a stage in front of a group of people in a situation similar to yourself and practice speaking. People will give you amazing feedback on how you speak, what your presence is like and more.
There is a great group called Toastmasters where you can go and do just this. You will gain a lot of confidence, gain amazing feedback and by the end of it you will be amazing at speaking in front of people whether it be one person or a million!
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Finding your voice and building your confidence in front of people will take you far in this world. Having the ability to convey your message, to teach clearly and have confidence when speaking is what people look for when they want a teacher, a mentor and more.
Remember, everyone has to start somewhere and even just having the desire to do a job they love instead of the normal 9–5, is amazing. Now you have 5 steps to help you towards achieving your dreams, working for yourself and doing what you are passionate about.
Remember that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. By reading this blog today, that is step one. Now you can do the next five steps we have suggested and be well on your way to being a successful, confident and happy speaker teaching other people what you love.
Here at PassionDig, we want to give you a place to teach what you are passionate about and to help you grow further. We also want to connect you with other passionate people who are going through the same thing as you or who can give advice as they went through it themselves in the past. PassionDig is a community of passionate people who are growing, doing what they love and helping one another. It’s a place to help you start experimenting your ideas and do tasters, to teach other in a safe and personal experience setting.
Head to PassionDig now and sign up to be kept up to date with what we’re doing and on for you to be on track to a happier and more fulfilled future.
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