Tomorrow is the Tall Tales contest at our club and I have a lot of mixed feelings.
On the one hand I feel pretty good about the story I’m going to tell. I’ve spent this past week honing it the best I can and now all I have to do is work on the presentation.
On the other hand I’m nervous, because every once in a while, I start wondering how my story will stack up against the competition. I know this is a total waste of energy.
I have absolutely no control over how others will perform so I’m trying hard to stay focused on things I can do to make my own performance the best it can be.
Unfortunately, the last time I gave a speech I thought I had the whole thing memorized. I thought I was all prepared to go notes-free. Less than a minute into the speech I completely froze, lost my train of thought, and had to get my notes from my seat. It was sort of humiliating.
I really want to make sure this doesn’t happen in the competition, so I’ve been reading up on how to overcome speech anxiety. I found these tips from Toastmasters International that are to the point and easy to implement (http://www.toastmasters.org/tips.htm). Cross your fingers that they work…
Gotta go now. I’m about to go implement tip #2: practice, practice, practice!
