Public Speaking helps you master skills that can benefit you in everyday life. It can help you form connections by expressing yourself clearly. It can reduce anxiety when you socialise. It can also help you have a strong presence and persuade people to get things done.
What are the three types of public speaking in everyday life?
- Conveys information effectively in an engaging way, so it is understood.
- Motivates people to achieve objectives by connecting them with the purpose of their actions.
- Persuades people to develop an interest or do something desirable.
There is also public speaking done to Entertain, such as those delivered at parties.
So you might be wondering: What’s it got to do with everyday life?
Examples of Public Speaking in Everyday Life
- Networking
- Socializing in groups
- Taking lead in projects
- Expressing ideas to people
The importance also varies for different groups, such as students, working professionals, job seekers, and retired individuals.
As a Student
For students, public speaking will help achieve better presentations, of course. But it will help in other areas too.
- Leadership positions like the class representative
- Vivas for assignments and internships
- Making friends
As a Working Professional
Depending on your profession, you’ll have different public speaking needs. A few generally required are:
- Work presentations
- Communicating with Colleagues
- Networking and forming close ties with colleagues
As a Job Seeker
When looking for jobs, most want to look confident, and public speaking skills can boost that.
- Group discussion (GD) phase of job selection requires communicating points and discussing them with others.
- Reaching out to recruiters and getting your presence noticed.
- Making a mark in your interview phase.
As a Retired Person
As a retired individual, public speaking can still help in many ways.
- Providing speeches to encourage others.
- Passing on information to the next generation.
- Making your past contributions get noticed.
The relationship between public speaking and everyday life goes both ways!
- You get to practice public speaking in everyday life to improve what you do on a stage.
- You learn public speaking, which carries over some benefits to your everyday life.
Let’s dive into both of these topics now!
Practising public speaking in everyday life improves what you do on a stage.
There is a lot of content around public speaking, be it research articles, books, or blog posts. Going over these might help you develop the know-how of how it’s done. If you want to learn how to get better at it, feel free to check out this article.
However, putting it into practice is another matter altogether. When you face an audience and are suddenly required to speak while people look at you expectantly, it might trigger your fight/flight/freeze response. Mostly, this translates to freezing and not being able to utter words. On a lower level, it might make you mess up your words or speak without confidence because you would be preoccupied with negative thoughts such as “I probably won’t sound good” instead of the content you’re delivering.
Essentially, the anxiety due to the lack of practice might overpower your ability to think clearly and deliver a quality speech. So what can you do? Practice, of course. And this can be done through your day-to-day interactions.
There are many methods to do this. Few are given here.
Mirror Practice
You may do mirror practice, which allows you to see your nonverbal communication as well as other features. It feels odd at first, but it’s one of the most common and effective methods of better public speaking.
You simply stand in front of a mirror and be your personal judge of what you’re doing wrong. Some find it challenging to do this in front of other people, so preferably do mirror practice when in an empty room. Alternatively, you can even do it in your washroom or any other place with a mirror.
Recording Yourself
Some people may find that practising in front of a mirror distracts them, or they’re unable to do it naturally. In that case, just put up a phone or a webcam somewhere that records you while you speak. Visualise the camera as the audience, and then check after you’re done with your speech. Repeat. As many times as it takes to perfect it.
A significant advantage is that you can ask others for feedback since there is a video. However, the feedback is not immediate, so the process might take some time.
Practising Public Speaking in Everyday Interactions
Apart from mirror practice and recording yourself, one more critical tactic is to do it in day-to-day interactions. Delivering a speech to another person would be ideal because you can receive real-time feedback and improve immediately until a satisfactory result is achieved. This is enhanced more if you deliver it to a group, e.g., your family or a group of friends.
The practice is not limited to giving your speech; you can also use aspects used in public speaking to when we’re communicating normally. For example, you can change your tone of voice when you make a joke to enhance the effect on the person listening. By doing this successfully in these interactions, you’ll gain confidence to do it in a stage also. Similarly, practise other things such as facial expressions, body language, etc., and you’re set to go.
Learning public speaking carries over benefits to your everyday life.
Communication and the desire to convey information, persuade, or motivate are the essences of public speaking. These skills are also advantageous in everyday life because we as social beings always engage in communication and want to do it well, right?
Forming Connections
Many people struggle with expressing what’s on their minds. They have ideas but don’t know how to put them across. Public speaking teaches you to present ideas more clearly and make snapshot judgments of what to say on different occasions. You may find it easier to assertively express your opinions as well as your emotions, which can help you develop strong bonds with people. Others can better understand you while you’re also able to get things done. For instance, if you’re upset by something someone said, rather than holding it back, which might fester into passive aggressiveness later, you might benefit from clearly expressing why it bothered you. This will allow them to understand you, respect you, and connect with you.
Similarly, you might find it easier to network, which is a very useful skill in most occupations. Businessmen, for instance, benefit from having networks with others that they can fall back on when help is needed.
Reduce Anxiety in Socializing
Some of us feel apprehensive about talking to other people, especially under certain criteria, like people who we think to be intelligent, more successful, etc. On a group level, there might be more apprehension since there are more eyes watching you. Public speaking will allow you to let go of this apprehension and express yourself confidently. You might notice that it’s easier to put across things.
Factors that were uncertain before, such as “am I sounding right?”, “what if they think my ideas are dumb?” will not stop you because you learn through public speaking to refine the way you communicate and get to know exactly how things are done. You also become more comfortable with not everyone liking your opinions, which is understandable because people differ in beliefs.
Have a Stronger Presence and being a Leader
By learning to assert your points clearly, you would command more respect, and people may hang on to your every word. A lot of people like someone who is upfront with them and won’t passively accept whatever is told to them. Your words must show your distinctive personality rather than being just like the rest. Most of us want to get along with others, so we conform and try to be like them, but when we speak our minds and show confidence in being different through public speaking, we become leaders and changemakers. People admire that.
Persuade People
Through public speaking, you might also learn how to persuade people. We do this on a regular basis, so it’s very useful, like when bargaining, negotiating deals, asking for favours, etc. Persuasion to get what we want also involves putting across how it will benefit others in return. So if you’re asking for favours, putting across your ability to pay it back on a later occasion is crucial.
Public Speaking will also help you in the future, both in professional and student life. So public speaking has a lot of by-products, right? I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that there are just too many benefits to not learning this skill.
And remember: the most important thing in public speaking is being confident.
You can even take public speaking classes; whether they’re worth it is up to you to determine. Public Speaking Coaching for the same is available on our website.
