Tips for public speaking

It has been a while since I touched on public speaking and I have to present another speech tomorrow in front of a small audience talking about autism and the various behavioral and emotional effects that occur in the autistic person and in their family and friends. Because it is such an emotional subject for some people, I need to be able to deliver the speech just right. Because this is not my usual subject of discussion with people, I have been freaking out a little bit the past few days but this morning when I woke up and decided to go over the speech one last time, I had nothing but excitement that I would be able to deliver a speech and talk about such an interesting and intricate subject such as autism.

I have some more tips for you all to take on board if you have to speak in public. I define public speaking as 'speaking to one or more people in a public arena'. Basically, if you are talking to 2 people in a park then you are speaking publicly. Most people see public speaking as this humongous wall of death that they hate. My first tip for today is...

Tip #1 - Don't set yourself up for too much
By this I mean, don't set yourself a mindset that public speaking is this horrible task that is hard and embarrassing. Because when you get up to talk, the only thing going through your mind is this is going to be so hard and embarrassing. Instead you need to build yourself up, which is my next point.

Tip #2 - Build yourself up!
Before I go into a speaking situation, I often think to myself. 'This is totally yours, your going to destroy this!' Obviously, in the younger generation, 'your going to destroy this' means you will succeed at this with no problems. Reassuring yourself that everything will be okay will result in little issues or problems that may occur during the speech.

Tip #3 - Know how to recover
If a joke doesn't get the response you wanted or you muddle your up words, I mean muddle up your words then don't stop and wait for people to respond. Move on and ignore it, people are less likely to think about something if you don't.

Those have been my top 3 latest public speaking tips! Wish me luck for tomorrow.