WHY PERFECTIONISM IN PUBLIC SPEAKING IS DANGEROUS AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT!

Perfectionism in public speaking is aiming for the impossible! Perfect content, perfect delivery and a perfect response from the audience. Perfectionism has the potential to derail any speech and the speaker often ends up under extreme stress. Perfectionism is hence a dangerous game to play in public speaking!

If you are a public speaker prone to perfectionism, it can put you under stifling pressure at every stage in the speaking process.

In the speech development phase, perfectionism can make it more challenging to think clearly and allow your ideas to develop as your brain gets bombarded with many ideas which are just not quite good enough. This can really hamper progress and can cause the pressure to soar especially when working to a tight deadline.

In the practice phase, perfectionism can cause the process to be more exhausting than it needs to be. The practice phase should be the point in which you give yourself permission. Permission to experiment with different delivery techniques to find out what works for you and make mistakes which you can learn from. Perfectionism can be crippling as there is the need to get everything right the first time.

In the delivery phase, if perfectionism is not brought under control it can have a detrimental impact on performance. The impacts can include, and are not limited to, brain freeze leading to an inability to remember the key points of the speech, an emotional meltdown for the audience to witness or, for some speakers in severe circumstances, quitting before speech is meant to be over.

After the speech is over, perfectionism can still cause issues. It can lead a speaker to experience severe disappointment with performance. This can be the case even in cases where there is overwhelming positive feedback and praise. This is simply because no matter how good the speech was, it is never good enough when perfection is the benchmark. Sadly this can then have a domino effect on hampering future speeches.

Clearly avoiding perfectionism in public speaking is important, however what you don’t want is for the pendulum to swing too far the other way and deliver a sub-par speech. It is still vital that your speech content and delivery is of a high quality. Therefore, if you should not be aiming for perfection, as a public speaker what should you be aiming for? I recommend the following 3 E’s:

1. Excellence

Whilst perfectionism causes you to strive to be beyond your best, excellence requires you bring your best. What does excellence looks like? In my opinion it is providing your audience with high quality content together with a polished and yet natural delivery.

2. Engagement

Whilst perfectionism can distract you causing you to be self-focused, aiming for engagement allows you to be audience focused. The audience is giving you their time, make it your mission to engage them. This is achieved through your content, delivery style and your own enthusiasm for the key message you are sharing.

3. Enjoyment

Whilst perfectionism can restrain you from having fun on stage, giving yourself permission to let go a little can change the experience you and your audience has and can even change the atmosphere in the room. If you make up your mind to enjoy your time on stage, it is far more likely your audience will enjoy listening.

May I encourage you that if you do struggle with perfectionism be determined in your public speaking to let go of it and embrace the 3Es for maximum impact! When you do this you will see how aiming for excellence, engagement and enjoyment can radically change your public speaking experiences.