How hard are you on your yourself?

Is being cruel to be kind really an effective strategy for self-improvement?

How hard are you on yourself?

Let's set a scene.

You've just finished presenting. The audience is clapping as you step down from the stage to take your seat. What are you thinking about?

Do you find yourself fixating on the 'wrong' things?

• Oh, my goodness, I forgot to mention XXX! How stupid of me!

• And I stumbled over pronouncing XXX clearly. Duh.

• That person with the red tie in the third row kept playing with his phone. That means I'm boring.

• I'm never going to be good at this no matter how hard I try.

Or do you focus on your successes?

Many of us tend to lump everything in together. It's either all good or, all bad. Black or white. There are no distinctions and more importantly, no credit given for little successes, improvements along the way to mastery.

If we apply commonsense, we know the measure of success when giving a speech is neither ‘all this’ nor ‘all that’. That’s far too simplistic.

We also know positive feedback, acknowledgment of elements done well, boosts confidence and creates willingness to keep moving, to learn more, and to work with criticism positively.

So, let's practice being kinder to ourselves.

The next time you finish presenting instead of flaying yourself by internally re-running your ‘errors’ big and loud focus on what you did well.

Grab up a pen and paper and write them down. Or burble them into a note on your phone. The act of committing them to paper or recording them gives them more power. Anything, no matter how minor you think it is, qualifies. The only rules are that whatever you list must be positive and true.

Examples:

• I stood tall.

• I breathed deeply to calm myself before I started to speak.

• I faced the audience.

• I managed some eye contact.

• I recovered from a moment of panic by remembering to use my cue cards.

• My voice got stronger as I got further into my speech.

• The audience appreciated my hand out.

• I felt good about my clothing choices.

• My cue cards were ordered well.

Try it. There's a fine balance between being 'cruel to be kind' and being overly indulgent with ourselves.

My personal experience is that most of us err on the cruel side. How we expect ourselves to learn through repeated beatings is beyond me. It's ridiculous, silly logic. Let's change it.

Click the link for more about challenging negative self-talk and other strategies to manage public speaking nerves.

As per usual, my thanks for reading. It’s appreciated! I hope you find it useful.
Have a splendid week,
Kind regards,
Susan

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PPS. As I said last week, and I’ll say next, if you have ideas for topics you’d like to see covered in this newsletter, or if you’d like to share an article on some aspect of public speaking, or a speech of your own, please get in touch. Either reply to this email or contact me through the form on my about me page on my website. I’d love to hear from you!