Presenting Under Pressure: 3 Tips to Take Control
Your presentation is chugging along smoothly … until it suddenly feels like it’s veering off the rails. Someone interrupts, someone asks a question you weren’t expecting, someone challenges your main argument.
Your heart races, your fists clench, your stomach hurts, and you can feel the sweat pooling. These are all normal parts of your stress response but they definitely don’t help you think clearly — right when you need to.
So, what can you do?
Pause
You will feel inclined to rush through the rest of your material — you want to get this done already. Fight it. Consciously slow down your delivery. Come back to your key message.
Don’t be afraid of silence. Take a moment to breathe and gather your thoughts. Take a sip of water while you collect yourself. (The audience won’t even notice.)
Then, take time to pause: between sections, when you ask a question.
Your audience likes it when you slow down because they get more time to process what you’re saying and reflect on it.
Bonus: you will sound like more of an authority if you take time to pause.
Focus on Your Breathing
As you slow down, focus on your breathing. Remember that your body supports your brain.
You have to do a lot of heavy brain work right now, so you need more oxygen. Getting more oxygen in will stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and help you feel calmer.
Think about your posture. If you feel under attack, have you hunched in on yourself?
Stand up straight, put your shoulders back, and take those deep breaths. Think about your diaphragm expanding, just not shallow breathing at the top of your chest.
This will help put your body into a calm state, ready to give your brain the support it needs to think quickly and respond to this stressful situation.
Don’t Make Negative Assumptions
It’s natural to feel uncomfortable when you’re presenting because you feel like you’re on display for the whole room. Unfortunately, that can lead to making negative assumptions about your audience.
If someone is frowning at you, what assumptions do you make?
Maybe they don’t agree with what you just said.
Much more likely: they’re concentrating and not aware of their facial expression. Or maybe they’re preoccupied because they have a parent or a child sick in the hospital.
Try to have grace for those frowners. Trust yourself and keep going.
If someone is looking at their phone while you’re speaking, what assumptions do you make?
Maybe they’re bored.
Much more likely: they’re having a busy day or have just been pulled into an urgent file. Or maybe no one told them it’s not polite to look at your phone while someone else is speaking.
Try not to make negative assumptions. Again, have grace for these distracted people because you don’t know what’s happening in their lives.
Presenting Under Pressure is a Learned Skill
One key way to overcome your fear of presenting is to expose yourself to it, one slightly painful presentation at a time.
Use these strategies to help you feel more comfortable and get your presentation back on track.
Being comfortable in uncomfortable situations is a learned skill. The more often you do it, the more your brain will get used to it — and stop coding it as a threat you need to be so nervous about.
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