All eyes on me

Reminiscing back to the days of pre-teen Grace, she was a performer, she loved attention and she jumped at the chance to speak publicly. Give her any topics, she spoke like she was passionate about it. Any tips given by her teachers absorbed into her brain, she utilised them. But the one thing she could never shake off, was indeed the constant nerves and shaking. Although being extremely excited to be centre of attention, nerves still seethed through her body.

To me, a great public speaker is one who engages with a crowd, smiles when appropriate, speaks confidently, is passionate and has something interesting to say. Throughout high school, public speaking became one of my worst fears. I enjoyed speaking to a crowd but always feared that I would forget words, bore everyone or present poorly written content.

Practicing my presentation over and over again gave me confidence that I knew what I was speaking about. I wanted to be able to recite it without the guidance of the whole script in front of me. Developing goals on how much I would learn each day helped push me to be comfortable with what I'm saying. Finally, having small cue cards with sentence starters helped to jog my memory as to where I was during the presentation. I quickly learned that having everything you are going to say written on cue cards is a big waste of time. I would lose my place if I looked up for more then 2 seconds, I didn't engage with the audience and I started to sound very mono toned.
Tip #1 don't write your whole presentation on cards.

Writing about something you're not passionate about clearly shows when you speak about it. Speaking about sheep won't be interesting to others if you aren't interested in sheep yourself. A speech I once did was indeed about sheep, which you would think isn't that interesting, but because I was a quirky young girl with a passion for sheep my audience was interested in what I was saying. Being well informed about your subject matter makes it a whole lot easier to speak about it and engage the crowd.
Tip #2 Be/act passionate about what you are speaking about.

I have never been a confident writer, it takes a long time to produce written work that I am happy with. I would sit with a pen and paper for hours trying to produce sentences that will connect with an audience. To remedy this, I would read my sentences out loud and correct them when things did not sound right. This was a slow and long process but I was rewarded with writing what I would be comfortable presenting. Reassurance has also helped me believe that my writing is not as terrible as I thought, although one is never truly satisfied with their work.  
Tip #3 proof read repeatedly.

Overall, young Grace thoroughly enjoyed her years of public speaking through high school, she followed all the advice her teachers gave her and managed to successfully achieve great results. I hope these 3 handy tips are helpful to those who need them. For those who just hate public speaking, I suggest deep breathing, rescue remedy and to realise the quicker you start, the quicker you finish.