3 Ways To Mentally Prepare For A Presentation
To mentally prepare yourself for an upcoming presentation, try the 3 tips listed below. These tips will be you strengthen your mind, reduce your stress, and improve your presentation.
1. Do nothing.
Recent scientific studies revealed what spiritual practitioners have known for centuries – meditation is good for you.
As you’re preparing for your presentation, schedule some time to do nothing other than clearing your mind and breathing. If you think you’re too busy to take time to meditate, remember the old Zen adage: You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day — unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour.
Meditation is proven to help with a long list of issues that plague the modern professional, however, stress is possibly the most costly ailment that meditation is known to remedy. The World Health Organization estimates stress costs U.S. companies at least $300 billion a year through absenteeism, turn-over and low productivity, according to the article Harvard Yoga Scientists Find Proof of Meditation Benefit.
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that practicing mindfulness meditation for only 20 minutes a day can improve attentiveness and decrease stress in less than a week. (source)
Scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles and Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn found that 12 minutes of daily yoga meditation for eight weeks increased telomerase activity by 43 percent, suggesting an improvement in stress-induced aging. (source)
Mike Brooks, director of the Austin Psychology and Assessment Center, says our thoughts are like a river. When we’re thinking about what we need from the store, the river is calm, but when we’re having negative thoughts—worrying about a presentation, for example—the current becomes more turbulent. Mindful people—those who live in the present—can step back and stay on the riverbank, watching their current of thoughts and not getting swept away by their content. (source)
To become one of those people living on the metaphorical riverbank of life, in the now, you only need to practice mindfulness meditation for 15-20 minutes every day. (source)
For those few minutes of daily meditation, you can sit on a yoga mat and listen to your breath. Or, you can weave meditation into your daily routine by devoting your full attention to anything that is happening in the present moment, such as the sound of the wind in the trees, the warmth of the water as you wash the dishes, or the texture, scent or taste of a bite of food.
2. Find your blind spots.
According to the article You’re More Ignorant Than You Think You Are, and research by Cornell psychologist David Dunning, driver’s education courses tend to increase, rather than decrease, accident rates. While many of us might believe education is the cure for blind spots, this assumption is not always true. The contrary might actually be more accurate – at least some of the time. Sometimes we can get too excited about knowing something, and therefore we think we know everything.
Don’t get me wrong; knowledge and the resulting confidence are both critical for a presenter to succeed. However to ensure that your confidence and conclusions are justified, consider playing devil’s advocate with all of your assumptions. For example, as you’re crafting the logic and content outline that will guide the development of your presentation, challenge every conclusion, belief, and fact as if you were your harshest critic. Try to shake loose some elements of your presentation that cannot stand up to the challenge. This practice will help you avoid the mindset trap that affects many driver’s education course graduates. If you approach this process with honesty and an open mind, when you start getting momentum on stage, you can rest assured that you are not going to crash and burn because you did the extra work of double and triple checking your decisions.
3. Work on your willpower.
In another exceptional article on BigThink.com, author Jason Gots explores The Neuroscience of Success. In his article, Gots presents research from the book, Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang
In regards to willpower, Gots explains: The better able you are to resist your own natural impulses, the more effectively you can focus your mental energy on the task at hand, however pleasant or irritating it may be. The net result: getting more things done, and doing each thing better.
This is not rocket science. Most of us understand the meaning of willpower. However, Gots’ explanation is a refreshing reminder that perhaps instead of using apps, timers, or fancy to-do lists, we should focus on strengthening our willpower in order to get more done. Productivity tools are great, but only to a certain point. You need willpower to have the discipline to even use the tools consistently. And for those times when your trusty productivity tools are hard to reach or unavailable, you are once again left with the greatest tool of all – your mind. Considering that, it is easy to see why strengthening willpower is an important goal for us all to embrace.
In response to Dr. Wang’s quote, brains do well what they do often, Gots explains, in one experiment, scientists discovered that brushing your teeth with the wrong hand for two weeks leads to increased stick-to-it-iveness in other areas.
If you’re struggling to focus when working on your presentation, consider brushing your teeth with the wrong hand for two weeks, or tackling another similarly simple challenge for a period of time. The study suggests that by strengthen willpower for one task, you also strengthen your overall willpower. With stronger willpower, you should be able to follow a more disciplined routine that will lead to better results – for your presentations and other areas of your life as well.
Remember, no pain, no gain is true not only for athletes or startup success stories, but also public speakers. Presenters typically need to live a disciplined life to have standout success. Review our Slideshare presentation below for inspiration to live a more disciplined life.
Conclusion
Before your next presentation, meditate daily, strengthen your willpower, and challenge your confident assessment of your presentation material. With a more disciplined and self-aware mind, you will likely create the best presentation of your life.
