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Wedding Speeches - How to Deal
with Speech
Anxiety
Wedding Speech
anxiety is not just a fear for
most people, it is an actual
phobia. The sweaty palms and
itchy skin is just the
beginning. Each person
experiences this type of
anxiety regularly however, not
everyone knows how to best get
it under control. Here are the
top 20 tips that I could
provide to help you cope with
your speech anxiety as well as
controlling it. Let’s take a
look.
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Remember that during a
wedding you already know
the audience and the few
that you don’t know, you
will only have to see that
one time. Why be
afraid?
-
Get to know your audience
beforehand. The more you
know about your audience,
the more confidence you
have that your speech will
be successful. just mingle
with those that you don’t
know before you give your
speech. Get to know them on
a personal
level.
-
Select the right topic for
your speech. The more
comfortable you are
speaking about a topic and
the better you know it, the
less anxiety your speech
will actually cause
you. Choose an aspect
of the couple that you know
something about to reduce
anxiety. Just remember that
others will be listening
too, so it may be good to
have a few copies on hand
so that you are not
repeating someone else’s
speech.
4. If you have
successfully given the speech
when you practiced it, try to
deliver it the same
way.
5. Make sure that your
notes etc. are organized
properly. Having them be in the
wrong order is going to make it
much harder if you should
forget something.
6. You must again, try to
imagine yourself giving the
speech, and it being wildly
successful. It really
does renew your confidence when
you need it.
7. Be prepared for
possible problems and make
contingency plans. Before
speaking, you have to think
about what might go wrong and
plan what you’ll do if it
does. That way, you’re
not surprised by anything that
might happen. This is
especially important if you are
using mechanical devices (e.g.,
laptop and projector for
PowerPoint). Having contingency
plans means that you’ll feel
good about your preparation no
matter what happens, and if
that problem occurs, it won’t
bother you
anyway.
8. Use deep breathing
techniques. Learning some
relaxation breathing techniques
can help you calm your nerves
before you stand up to
speak.
9. Make sure that you
look your best. If you don’t
feel like you look well
physically, you will not
perform as well,
mentally. You should also
make sure that you go to bed at
a reasonable hour the night
before you speak, and avoid
alcohol that evening since
drinking too much can also
interfere with good
sleep. Eating a healthy
breakfast or lunch before you
go to the wedding will also
help your body function at its
best when you have to
speak.
11. Act calm, even if you
don’t feel calm because you
will then perceive success
which will allow your behavior
to follow suit. Basically in
acting calm you may soon help
you feel calm.
12. Focus on the message,
not your speech anxiety --
Speech anxiety is perhaps the
only problem in life that will
always go away if you can
ignore it well
enough.
13. Try to see your
physical arousal as
anticipation rather than
anxiety. We often experience
the same physical symptoms of
arousal (heart rate increase,
adrenaline, butterflies etc.)
whether you’re excited about
something positive that is
about to happen or something
negative. When your are
feeling these types of
symptoms, they often assume
that must mean they’re scared
and fool themselves into making
it worse. What you need
to do is learn to interpret the
arousal you feel as excitement
about the great speech you’re
about to give.
14. Whenever you can try
to use message-related bodily
motion to help you to dissipate
energy. It’s hard to stand
still when you are physically
aroused. Using some
message-related motions, such
as moving around the room or
talking with your hand
expressions can help release
some of that tension.
Just try not to be too animated
or you will look odd. Wedding
speeches is a time when
animation actually helps
increase the festive
mood.
15. Realize that a few
errors will not hurt the speech
as long as you continue without
getting hung up on them an
occasional stumble has no
impact on the quality of the
speech. So, rather than
worrying that there might be a
small problem at some point,
focus your attention on more
important
matters.
16. Focus on what you do
right. Even if you do make a
few mistakes, you will also do
a lot right so you need to
think about them.
Dwelling on the mistakes will
give you a negative attitude
that causes more mistakes and
greater anxiety. Think
about what went
well.
17. Remember that when
you are in a relaxed
environment like a wedding, the
listeners don’t notice as much
as you think. Speakers know
what they intend to do, and are
very much aware of symptoms of
anxiety. Audiences can
rarely tell if a speaker made a
mistake and are much less
sensitive to anxiety cues than
the speakers. Knowing
that you are the only person
who knows if you made a mistake
should help to ease some of the
anxiety.
18. If you do a good job
on the introduction or if the
first 30-60 seconds of the
speech go well, the success
will relax you. So, focus
on doing your intro really
well.
19. Look at friendly
faces in the crowd. Look at
your friends and family members
or the bride and groom who are
likely to be enjoying your
presentation. Glance
their way sometimes when you
need a little positive
reinforcement while you are
talking. Just don’t stare
at those people all the time,
because that will make them
uncomfortable and makes the
rest of the audience feel left
out.
20. If you want, you can
use presentational aids to help
you draw attention away from
yourself. Just make sure that
you don’t draw too much
attention to the aids instead
of your
speech.
21.
It is also a good idea to try
out a public speaking class
which is a great start to
learning to speak comfortably
in front of an audience. A
large reason for speech anxiety
is the strangeness of the
situation, and this is the best
way to reduce that
problem.
For more
information go
to:
Wedding Speeches - Home
http://www.myamazingweddingspeeches.com
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