As the saying goes,

“If you can speak, you can influence. If you can influence, you can change lives.” – Rob Brown

Opportunity is not something that comes always; not taking up an opportunity is mostly due to dis-interest or lack of self-confidence. Confidence includes standing up for yourself and your friends in times of trouble, expressing your thoughts and many other attributes of an articulate and lively person.

But not all have this wonderful gift of expressing, not all can give up their shyness and stand out for their needs as well as that of others. A way to boost your confidence in communication is by Public Speaking. Many people have shared their experience as to how speaking improved their lives. Now our next question comes, How? How can something so simple as speaking boost our confidence which in-turn is very important?

Speaking is an important part of our lives. Let us take the example of Mahatma Gandhi. Have you ever wondered how one person can attract and influence such a huge number of people to strive peacefully for the freedom of the nation? Yes, speaking can influence people and gain their trust. Now, let me elaborate on how speaking helps in enhancing one’s confidence.

When we start delivering speeches, our vocabulary and presentation skills improve. Slowly, we can come out of our shell and start interacting with people, speaking cheerfully and respectfully. Sometimes, when we see a person speaking constantly, we may think he/she is wasting time in unnecessary chit-chat and might not want to be like them. But the trick, like my mom always advises me, is to be smart and not over- smart, to express our thoughts frankly, but respectfully. It is all in our hands to come out of our shells and live our short life to the fullest, spreading positive vibes all around.

My first experience with Public Speaking was when I was in 4th when we had speaking competition. Though I could make a good speech and present well, I did not receive any prize. Nevertheless, like my parents always say, participation is always important. But I could not stop thinking, why had I not received any prize? What did I do wrong? I looked up to my speech, found my errors in vocabulary and how I presented the speech. My class teacher also suggested few areas to improve. These helped me to improve my presentation in the subsequent speeches and contests. Thus, even with such a small experience I could correct many problems in my communication.

From all my experiences, I could decide that Public Speaking is indeed an art that helps one to improve a lot. Everyone have got their own way to improve their speech. Now I conclude with the quote,

“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed. But when we are silent we are still afraid. So, it is better to speak” –Audre Lorde

Thank You!