Presenting ones own work can be a stressful situation for some people that needs to be hurdled. Nervous shaking, sweaty hands, a dry voice or occasional blackouts are only some of numerous side effects. This kind of stage fright can be a negative influence on the way you present your PowerPoint presentation and is an obstacle that needs to be cleared.
Warming Up And Training Your Voice
As a warm up for your presentation you should train your voice. This will help you to avoid speaking too quietly because of your nervousness and you can prevent yourself from eventual voice problems. Therefore, you should train talking loudly in advance and try to pronounce each and every syllable more considerably than you would do normally. Even singing loudly under the shower or in the car improves on your vocal chords and is conducive for a clear voice.
Choose Your Clothing
Choose the clothes you want to wear beforehand and prepare them the day before your presentation so you avoid a stressful situation in the morning. Make sure that your clothing is appropriate and fits the atmosphere of the event. At the same time you should feel comfortable so that you look secure and present yourself the best way possible. To prevent sweating caused by nervousness you should choose air-permeable clothing and, if you know that you will not be able to prevent perspiration, make sure that you wear black clothes to hide potential sweat stains.
The Right Preparation
If you have prepared yourself well for your presentation and you have engaged yourself in your topic, you are well positioned. You cannot brace yourself for all kinds of eventualities that can occur in the course of your presentation, there is always need for a little bit of improvisation. But what you can do is preparing yourself on your topic and your presentation in a conscientious way. To do so you should create clearly structured file cards that support you while presenting. Train your presentation with those cards and hold your speech in front of a mirror or your friends. This will avoid being plunged in at the deep end when holding your presentation for the first time in front of your audience. Make use of technologies like video cameras or microphones to record and analyze yourself. This will help you laying off insecurities.
Self-Motivation And Routine
Of course one might think that persuasion does not help,but in fact the opposite is the case. You should talk to yourself and calm yourself down when you get too nervous. Say to yourself that you did everything you could to create a good presentation and that you are ready to proudly perform your work to your audience. Subconsciously you will feel more self-confident and more dynamic and you will see that you can hold your presentation with a newly acquired persuasiveness. A certain routine in dealing with presentations is a great advantage. You will learn coping with stressful situations and you will earn important experiences. Therefore you should take any opportunity that gives you the chance to hold a presentation or a speech in front of people so that you feel more comfortable with this kind of situations. The gained routine will help you reducing your stage fright and being more relaxed.
Additionally: A certain level of stage fright is not harmful but even conducive for your presentation. Because of your nervousness your concentration will increase and you will perceive your environment more intense. A little bit of stage fright is only natural and helps you avoiding slight mistakes that occur because of carelessness.