Are you a perfectionist? Get over it. It's killing your presentation. In every speech and presentation class, I tell the audience that I don't allow perfection - for two reasons:
- You can't achieve perfection on earth so why frustrate yourself?
- Even if you could achieve it, people will resent you. Nobody likes a perfect person.
And the same is true for public speakers. Nobody can relate to a perfectly polished presenter. In fact, a public speaker who is too polished can be perceived as slick. The goal is to be human. The audience relates to your humanity, not your perfection. Yes, your presentation needs to be professional and confident. But that doesn't mean you don't trip over a word, occasionally blank out or get loud feedback noise from the microphone. It's not about a perfect presentation. It's about a confident recovery.
People who hear me speak often say, "Diane embodies her message. I learned as much by watching her on stage as I did from her content." Let me assure you that there are times when I screw up. But I make sure I recover with grace. So I'm sharing some recent bloopers as I was preparing new youtube videos. As you can see, effective public speaking and video presentations take a lot of practice. A professional video presentation requires many takes. While the finished video presentation may appear seamless, this peek behind the camera demonstrates that the process takes a lot of practice.
Now that you can see I'm not a perfect public speaker, maybe you'll stop trying to be perfect and get real!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qHuZfUOujc