Tips on How to Survive Giving a Presentation!

I am perhaps the least suitable person in the world to give a presentation, even to a small group: I get nervous, I sweat and shake, and as soon as I stand up my vocabulary shrinks to include only four letter words! In spite of this (or maybe because of this), there are many occasions when I find myself standing before a group of people who expect me to somehow deliver a respectable presentation.
In this article I wish to lay out a number of points that really help me get through this nightmarish ordeal (and for to me it really is an ordeal!).

1. Practice
This seems obvious. Prepare what you are going to say. Write it down and practice it. Have somebody else read through your slides, or notes, with you. Have somebody listen to you practice. Yes, this is obvious… but if you are anything like me then you will feel nervous just practicing! You will be reluctant to show your work to anyone and will feel the urge to keep it out of sight until the last second.
Honestly though, the more times you practice the better it will be on the day. Whenever I have to do a presentation I always practice at least four times with my girlfriend the night before (and am thankful that she forces me to do so!). The first time is always a complete disaster (I shudder to think what would happen if that first practice was actually the real thing)! The second tends to be a little better and by the end I usually have some idea of what I’m going to say. Simply preparing the slides and writing the notes does not help you when you have to speak out loud.
Practice, in my case, does not make perfect. But it really does help! 

2. Don’t rely on cards
Know your slides, or material, well. Practice what you are going to say as many times as you can. But don’t rely on reminder cards. Trust me, they may seem like a life-line while you are writing them, but they are really just a trap.
First of all, you will spend nearly the entire time looking down at them instead of looking up at your audience and, secondly, if you do lose your place you will panic and spend flustered seconds searching through them. Once you become flustered you will find it very hard to regain your flow. Far better to look up at a slide every so often, or to pause for a moment while you think your sentence through, than to read off a card!