Ever feel unsettled when you speak up? Use this trick to get in the groove more easily

Remember middle school gym class?

I know what you’re thinkin’: “Why would I EVER want to remember middle school gym class?”

Well, before you stash those memories of smelly locker rooms away (deep into the attic of your mind), remember this: STRETCHING. 

Before every gym class or virtual workout you do nowadays, you warm up. And you warm up in order to perform at your peak, right?

The same goes for speaking. 

So if you’ve ever felt like it takes a few minutes to warm up and get in the groove of articulating yourself clearly and confidently, (think: those first few minutes where you’re waiting for the adrenaline rush to settle and that second-guessing to subside), you’re not alone and today’s blog post is for you.

I’m sharing a simple trick to help you cut your warm-up time in half so you feel more settled and agile from the get-go and can project that ease and confidence when it matters most.

Check out this 2-minute video from *inside a client session* to learn how to shorten that unsettled feeling when you first speak up and get yourself in the groove faster than ever before. 

It’s that simple. 

When we’re nervous, we think we’re taking up more time. We think we’re speaking way slower than we actually are. And we think that if we hurry up a bit and “get through it,” we’ll make better use of people’s time and not bore them.

But the exact opposite is true.

When you try to hurry up and get through it, you make it harder on your listener to track what you’re saying, and you’ll likely come across as less comfortable and confident.

INSTEAD, practice pausing on purpose so you:

✔️feel more settled and in the groove

✔️take better care of your listener 

✔️put your audience at ease, and in turn, feel more at ease yourself.

Kapeesh?

In the meantime, keep showing up as the YOU, you most want to be. One intention, one interaction at a time.

Thanks so much for watching and I’ll see you back here next week!

All my love, 

Video Transcript:

Nice work. First of all, you are no different than every other human being on the planet in that you have a warm-up period….

The first few seconds (or minute or two), there’s the adrenaline rush – you’re nervous, you’re second-guessing yourself…

But one thing that I think will really help you is to change your perception of how much time you’re taking.

I think you think that you’re going a lot slower than you actually are, and that if you hurry up and get through it, you’re not wasting people’s time or boring them…

But the exact opposite is actually true.

If, from the very beginning, you start talking like I’m talking right now, where there’s a bunch of pauses and I’m really letting what I’m saying land…you’re gonna trust me so much more and you’re going to think I’m way smarter.

As opposed to, if I start off talking fast to kind of get through it, and I just want to fill every silence…

Now I sound nervous, uncomfortable, and like I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Do you see the difference?

It’s less words per minute, it’s more that there’s no air for them to take in what you’re saying.

So, the way I teach it is, you have to pause on purpose…right before you start sharing the idea you want to share.

And then, as soon as you’ve shared the idea, you stop to let them put it away.

So just behaviorally, I want you to start thinking about pausing before you start speaking so that you’re not starting with “um.”

You say what you want to say, and then, after you’ve landed an idea, even if you’re nervous, you pause on purpose.  You have to train yourself to do this.