Six ways to speak confidently

Regardless of your profession and job duties, it’s important to understand how to speak confidently and effectively. Your ability to be confident when speaking can help you excel in your job role and future career.

You need to be able to speak confidently whether you’re trying to convince a client to renew their contract, persuading a superior to support your idea, or giving a work presentation. These are some ways to become more confident when speaking:

1. Embrace your weaknesses

If you want to become more confident speaking in front of groups or voicing your ideas, you first need to embrace your weaknesses. This means being okay with making mistakes and learning from them. By doing this, you can ease your concerns and slowly improve your confidence when speaking in the workplace.

2. Give yourself time to prepare what to say

Whether you have to give a presentation, or you want to present an idea to a superior, giving yourself adequate time to practice and think about your message can help you gain more confidence. To do this, write your ideas, create an outline and rehearse your presentation a few different times.

3. Maintain eye contact

Maintaining eye contact with your audience can help convey your confidence, even if you’re nervous. When speaking in front of large groups at meetings or events, make eye contact with a few different people to show your focus on the entire audience. You can also focus on the wall directly behind your audience to help you concentrate. When speaking with one person, balance eye contact with short breaks.

4. Limit the number of questions you ask

When presenting an idea or delivering a presentation, you can convey confidence by refraining from turning definitive statements into questions. For example, saying, “We could switch up distribution channels, maybe?” comes across as indecisive. Instead say, “We should switch up our distribution channels to lower wholesale-related expenses.”

5. Allow the other person to initiate the conversation in silent moments

During conversations, you may feel the need to speak during silent moments. However, this can cause you to say something unrelated to your original message or idea. Therefore, you need to practice being okay with silent moments after you speak. This also causes your audience to contribute to the conversation.

6. Be yourself

Allowing your personality to show is an important part of being confident when you speak. It also helps conversations flow naturally, and it can help your audience connect with you as you give presentations.

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