ABC Model for Successful Presentations – Step 1 Assess

ABC Model for Successful Presetations

As I wrote in my previous article, I’m going to write a separate article for each step of the ABC Model for building your presentation skills.  The first step in the model is “Assess.”  It refers to assessing your feelings about the presentation.

Many people jump write into writing the content and preparing what they’re going to say.  Then the night before or right before they have to speak or worse yet, when they’re in front of the audience, they experience a rush of the negative feelings and fears that they haven’t dealt with and they panic.

Before you jump into the presentation, you want to do an assessment of your feelings around giving the presentation including any fears, anxieties, negative thoughts, or excitement you are experiencing.  The reason that the first step is about assessing the feelings you have around giving presentations is because by doing so, you’ll have the maximum amount of time to deal with these feelings and any obstacles they may bring about.

It’s much better to acknowledge these feelings early on so that you don’t go into panic mode right before the presentation.  It’s normal to still feel nervous no matter how much you have prepared, but you’ll have strategies to deal with the nerves so that they don’t leave you paralyzed.

Examine fears and anxieties, negative thoughts and labels you’ve given yourself that relate to giving presentations or speaking in public.

Fears and Anxieties

• Write down fears and anxieties you have about giving the presentation.
• Break down the reasons that you’re feeling the fear and put together a plan to help you overcome it.
• Visualize the presentation being very successful.
• Turn your fear into energy.  Take that adrenaline that you’re experiencing from the fear and use it to energize your presentation.
• Anticipate what may (realistically) go wrong so that you can better prepare for it.
• Find ways to relax before the presentation.  Tactics such as deep breathing, exercise, or meditation may help.

Negative Thoughts

You may be experiencing negative thoughts that don’t have anything to do with fears or anxiety.  Maybe, your manager is making you do the presentation or your teacher assigned it for homework.  Perhaps you don’t care about the topic or feel pressed for time in preparing for it.  Now is the time to let go of these negative thoughts, because they will affect the way that you prepare and deliver the presentation.  Then, you’ll give a less than stellar presentation, which may hurt your reputation, your grade, or your view of public speaking.

• First write down the negative thought(s).
• Ask yourself “Why am I experiencing these thoughts?”  If there is a valid reason why you are experiencing the thought and there’s something you can do about it, write down the action you can take.  For example, if you don’t have enough information about the topic, the action you can take is to conduct research on (blank).
• Write one to three benefits you’ll gain by giving the presentation.  It could be as simple as “I’ll improve my speaking abilities” or “I’ll get face time with the employees in XYZ department, which is the department I eventually want to work in.”  You can use those benefits as your “positive thoughts.”
• Start focusing on the positive thought as you begin to prepare.  The negative thought may creep up and that’s okay.  When you see it coming, replace it with the positive thought.

Labeling

• By labeling yourself as “shy” or a “bad public speaker” or telling yourself you’ll never be a great speaker, you’re holding yourself back.  Labeling yourself a “great speaker who doesn’t need practice” can also hurt you by holding you back from putting valuable time into preparing for the presentation.
• In order to rid yourself of these labels, you first need to write them down.
• Write down specific examples of why you’ve given yourself that label.  If you have no examples, then that should tell you that the label is false.  Cross it out.
• If you do have examples, look at each example separately.  Ask yourself if the example is related to public speaking and if it is not related, cross it out.  If it is related, ask yourself what you are going to do differently this time so that this presentation is more successful.

Here’s an example:

Label:  Bad public speaker

Reason for giving myself that label:  I turned red and forgot my lines in the school play in the 6th grade.

Is it related to public speaking?  Yes, I was speaking in front of an audience.

What is different this time?  15 years have passed.  I wasn’t aware of my fears before going on stage during that time.  Now I’m dealing with it before hand and will have strategies for overcoming stage fright before my presentation. Also, I’m not memorizing lines.  I know and understand the topic I’ll be speaking about.

Next Step

Now that you are finished with the first step, Assess, you can move on to the next step, Brainstorm.  Stay tuned for details in my next article!