How Do You Mentally Prepare For A Speech?
• Practice your speech using your outline. Do this a couple of times and each time use your outline less and less. • Condense your outline into fifteen words that you can put on your note card. As you become familiar with the flow of your speech this will become easier. These should be key words that help you to remember the flow of the speech. Don’t memorize the speech but memorize the flow. • Practice your speech using your note card. If you are using any visual aids incorporate those as well. • Time yourself. When practicing, time yourself to make sure that you are near your time goal. At this point, your presentation should be a little too long (couple minutes or so for a ten minute speech) because when you actually present you will go faster than when you practice (This will not happen as much as you gain experience). • Recreate the location where you will give your speech and practice there, as realistically as possible. This will allow you to get a realistic picture in your head
