3. Setting your public speaking goals
I strongly believe that if you are serious about achieving anything worthwhile in life (including becoming an effective public speaker) it is vital to set goals for yourself and to formulate a plan of action. If your goals and your plans for achieving them are written down, you can refer back to your plan periodically to check your progress and to take action if necessary to get yourself back on track. There is so much good material on goal setting, and there are amazing self development programs available on CD and DVD that include sections on goal setting. A number of organizations and individuals offer what I have found to be fantastic goal setting workshops as part of their self-development programs including Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Bob Doyle and “Learning Strategies Corporation”. These individuals and organizations highlight the importance of knowing the reason why your goal is important to you and the importance of being able to experience the emotional charge you would have, if you had already achieved that goal. To sum up, written public speaking goals, a compelling reason backed by powerful emotions will give you the focus and impetus you need in order to achieve your public speaking goals.
3.1 What is your reason for wanting to speak in public
Each person has unique needs for speaking in public. There are those I have met who only have very high level and non-specific needs to learn this skill. For example somebody was in an audience and saw an excellent speaker and felt that it would be great to learn how to speak like that. I fitted that category when I joined my public speaking club – I had no real reason for wanting to speak in public, and I believe that is why it took me lot longer than I would have liked to get rid of my nervousness. It’s like deciding to drive from Auckland to Wellington. If your reason for taking the journey is to get to Wellington for a business meeting at 09h00 on Monday morning, you are more likely to arrive there on time. If, on the other hand, you decide to drive from Auckland to Wellington for no specific purpose, you might take a few detours along the way or stopover at some other destination. Given this scenario you might arrive in Wellington a few days later than you expected the journey to take if you arrived at all! Public speaking is like that. Learning to speak in public is like arriving in Wellington in time for that meeting. That is your goal.
If you have a specific reason to get to Wellington you will check your gasoline, tire pressure, oil and water and then consult the map or set your GPS for the most direct route. You will pack your bags, get behind the wheel of your car and start the journey to Wellington. You will estimate how long it will take you to get to various cities and towns along the way and complete the journey. That way you can quickly determine whether you are ahead or behind schedule at various points along the way. The same applies for your public speaking goals. If you are clear about why you want to speak in public (getting to Wellington for an 09h00 meeting on Monday), you plan to read and study up on public speaking first, get some coaching and mentoring in public speaking, join a public speaking club and begin practicing your speaking (preparing your car, checking the maps, estimating timeframes and getting into the car and commence driving). You are more likely to succeed if you have a clear reason for wanting to speak in public, you document your goal and the milestones along the way, what actions you need to take and by when.
Ask yourself – why do I really want to learn public speaking skills? Have you been asked to be the Master of Ceremonies at a wedding, or to give a technical presentation at work, or to talk about a topic of interest at a business convention? Are you in search of that next promotion realizing that it will involve a lot of presenting and public speaking? You really need to know what the compelling reason is, for setting your public speaking goals, so that once you have written them down as S.M.A.R.T. goals you can begin visualizing yourselves as effective public speakers in a specific situation.
3.2 Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals
It is not enough simply to write your goal down, know your reason for wanting to achieve your goal and to read and visualize your goal daily. You need to give some thought as to how you are going to progress from your current situation (where you are not yet confident as a public speaker) to the point where you have achieved your goal (having unlocked your public speaking potential). You need a plan. It is widely believed that setting S.M.A.R.T. goals are the most effective way of setting empowering goals. Doran, G. T. (1981) believed that there is an S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives. Management Review, Volume 70, Issue 11(AMA FORUM), pp. 35-36. This methodology can be used not only by management, but in any goal setting context. S.M.A.R.T. stands for goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic & Timely
Your overall long term public speaking goal might be as follows:
Specific:
I am the Best Man at Dave and Suzy’s wedding and will need to make a speech of 10 minutes duration in front of 150 guests at a reception at the Green Hills Golf Club on December 5 next year.
Measurable:
The audience will applaud me on conclusion of my speech; the bride and groom will thank and complement me on my excellent speech; audience members will come up after my speech and thank me.
Attainable:
I have developed a list of S.M.A.R.T. sub-goals and timeframes for achieving the skills I need to make this wedding speech. I will celebrate each milestone as I achieve it and allow myself to feel very good about achieving each milestone.
Realistic:
I believe that my goal to make a wedding speech in the timeframe I have set myself is clearly realistic and do-able
Timely:
I have until 5th December next year to prepare to deliver the wedding speech but have formulated a series of sub-goals along the way to monitor my progress towards my goal. Each sub-goal is much smaller than the overall goal and has a realistic timeframe attached. (Ensure that you specify exact dates for your overarching goal and for each sub-goal).
It is important to realize that the goal above is huge and possibly overwhelming for somebody with little or no public speaking experience. If I was faced with such a challenging goal 10 years ago, I would have done everything in my power to avoid making this speech – even feigning illness or death!!
The key to goal setting is creating a plan where you break down the overall goal above into smaller and more manageable sub-goals. Once you have accomplished each of these sub-goals over time you progress to the next sub-goal until finally you will be ready to take on you final goal of giving that wedding speech for your best friend.
Let us now look at 2 much smaller sub-goals for you as the wedding speaker that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable and Timely.
Here is the first sub-goal:
I will investigate and visit the public speaking clubs in my area and join the one that best meets my needs by mm/dd/yyyy date (always specify an exact date).
This goal is specific – you will join a public speaking club in your area
The goal is measurable – you will be voted into the club and issued a membership certificate as proof that you have joined
The goal is achievable – you will need to find and visit 2 or 3 clubs in your area and attend their meetings. That means that you will need to dedicate several hours to your search. This is not an enormous task and is quite achievable
The goal is reasonable – The size of the task is manageable and is much more
