Читать книгу Personal Development With Success Ingredients - Mo Abraham - Страница 149

Nerves play a very important factor in influencing your voice. When you’re nervous, your natural tendency is to speed up. The effects of this can be that you:

•Lose your thought track and start to waffle on.

•Mumble and become unclear.

•Sound monotone and uninspiring.

You therefore need to control the speed of your delivery so that you avoid falling into these bad habits. There’s one key way to do this. This is to use a pause, which acts like a brake pedal to help you slow down.

When you first start to speak, aim to pause for about 2 – 3 seconds after your first sentence. This may seem like a lifetime, but it'll actually help you to control your speed and avoid racing ahead of yourself. It’ll also seem very natural to your audience as the pause allows them time to adjust to your voice and take in what you have just said.

A good way to practice getting use to pausing is to read out aloud a piece of text. This can be from a newspaper, magazine, etc.

When you get to a full stop, make sure that you pause for 2-3 seconds before moving on to the next sentence. This will help you to train yourself to pause at the end of your sentences and maintain a steady pace.

If you practice this exercise, the next time you have to speak to a group of people, the effect will be quite noticeable. You will come across with greater:

•Focus.

•Clarity.

•Confidence.