Perfectionism and Public Speaking Skills

Perfectionism is a waste of time. A big waste of time! When I got my first training job, I was on a project with several other presenters. We had about 3 weeks to prepare our individual sections of what we were going to be training. I spent a couple of days on my content and the rest rehearsing my material. The other trainers never even rehearsed. They were focused on their computer, their PowerPoint slides, etc. They wanted those slides to be perfect.

When over 500 trainees came through, I received compliment after compliment, “You are the most dynamic trainer here!” The only reason I appeared to be the most dynamic presenter, is because I am not a perfectionist. I didn’t care about it being perfect, but I did care about it being excellent. Excellence is achievable, perfection is not. Since I didn’t spend time perfecting it, I was free to spend my time rehearsing the delivery of my great content, and that’s why I was the most dynamic trainer there.

Stop perfecting your slides, your content, etc. and start rehearsing. If you do, you will be much more dynamic than you were last time you spoke.

More tips at: www.publicspeakingcoach.org