5 levels of public speaking
‘Throwing yourself in the deep end’ is the advice you got in school, university, and in work situations. Another variation of ‘just get on with it’. This is unhelpful speaking advice.
If you were climbing a ladder you wouldn’t start by trying to reach the top rung first. Your public speaking journey should be the same. Starting small, getting comfortable and confident first, then scaling up is the approach you need. Rung by rung you make it to the top of the speaking ladder.
I have created 5 levels of public speaking:
- Level 1: I am not getting in front of anyone to speak
- Level 2: I have a fear of public speaking
- Level 3: I can do it but it’s stressful
- Level 4: I am a confident speaker
- Level 5: I am a competent speaker
With many rungs in each level you can’t aim for level 5 without achieving the first four levels. If you want to know which level you are at, you can use the definitions on my website. This is how you start climbing up the ladder:
Level 1: I am not getting in front of anyone to speak
- Start by writing down your worst-case scenarios for public speaking. Make them tangible and tackle how you could remove them one at a time…
