What is Public Speaking Confidence?

Confidence is a vague concept, isn't it? I was asked recently to deliver a workshop on "Communicating with Confidence".

But what does that mean? 

To one person, it could be delivering a keynote in front of a large audience. To someone else, it could be asking a question at an internal meeting. 

For this particular workshop, it was the latter. One participant was so anxious about speaking up at the meeting, she wrote her point on a piece of paper and handed it to a colleague to say instead. 

I was listening back to a segment of Ciara Kelly's Lunchtime Live recently, where the topic of conversation was public speaking anxiety. There was a lot of listener engagement with the topic, with people telling how this lack of confidence was holding them back from contributing at meetings; from delivering presentations and from progressing in their career. 

There is lots of advice for public speaking and presentation skills confidence. I share lots of articles on my social media platforms. Of course, someone can also attend a workshop run by me or by someone else. They can learn the skills and techniques to craft and deliver speeches and presentations.

But that, by itself, isn't enough. You can't learn confidence at a workshop. You gain confidence, by doing. 

A workshop can set you on the right track, but you need to work on it, to practice and to develop the skills.  Speak up at the meeting. Ask a question. Offer to deliver a presentation. Start small. Build on it. Repeat. Congratulate yourself for what you do, rather than beating yourself up for what you didn’t do.

Define what public speaking confidence is for you. Aim towards that!