A hard fact to accept in the presentation space is that bad presentations happen to good speakers. Success is never guaranteed. The only way to fully own your mistakes is to keep moving forward. Understand that there is a way through any poor performance. While avoidance may seem like the easiest option, it will likely create crippling results long-term. Let’s dive into what it looks to fully own your deliverables by creating an actionable plan.
Understand Your Inner Narrative
If not dealt with in a healthy way, a bad presentation can be a traumatizing experience. Whether replaying negative feedback on a loop in your mind or giving in to negative self talk, dwelling on your experience can be damaging. We often create narratives that extrapolate feelings of doubt, insecurity, and judgement. When that starts happening, it’s time to take action. First, identify the behavior within yourself. Saddled with the ability to remove yourself from the situation for even a few moments, your capacity to keep moving forward is jump-started by perspective. Life moves on, and your feelings toward your speaking abilities must evolve as well in order to succeed.
Lean in to the lesson
Next, take a deep breath, do something you enjoy for the afternoon, then dive in to taking an inventory of your mistakes. It’s possible you may be carrying guilt because you knew you should have gone another direction and you chose the wrong path. Perhaps you should have spent more time memorizing your speech. It’s possible you didn’t dive deep enough into data that would have supported your claims. In order to keep moving forward, it’s important to remember there is a lesson to be learned, albeit the hard way. Select two solid items to improve on for your next presentation, then commit to doing the hard work toward actually polishing up those skills.
Get back in the saddle
Finally, do another presentation as soon as you can! Don’t allow too much time to lapse between a bad experience and a chance for renewal. Take an opportunity that is unconventional if your most recent speech was an annual appearance. In order to keep moving forward, you must have something on the calendar to work toward. Be intentional about booking another speaking engagement to refine your two skills and put them to the test.
Keeping a positive outlook and investing in yourself is what is most important. Don’t forget that mistakes happen. It’s what you make of them that truly makes you as a presenter. Capitalize on the opportunity to learn the hard lesson and purposefully seek out new opportunities to improve. Need someone to bounce ideas off of? Our presentation coaches are at the ready! Contact us today for a free quote!
