Your gesturing, your style of speaking, your voice (trying to sound like Darth ﻿Vader even though you sound like Pee Wee Herman ?), the content you choose to speak about (do you give a crap about your topic?), and lastly, the words you use (do you intentionally use jargon instead of simpler words that mean the same thing?). These showcase who you are as a speaker. Read through them again...

Today, though, we’re only going to focus on the voice. Mainly because it’s the one thing listed above that we can’t really change. Don’t get me wrong, we CAN strengthen it, but ultimately it’s going to sound distinctly unique to us. The jolly-good-news is, that’s quite alright.

Since your voice is an intimate part of who you are, you must get comfortable with it. The reason is, if you’re not happy about it, it may cause you to become self-conscious toward it and try to be someone you’re not. Perhaps another speaker that you thought sounded incredible. But if that happens, you become an act.

The lack of authenticity sucks, sure, but the amount of mental resources that you consciously expend trying to mimic somebody else, that’s the real killer in this case because the added pressure can hike up your anxiety.

And even if you aren’t trying to talk like or be somebody else, there are still potential problems. When it comes to your voice you don’t want to be playing mental ping pong with the likes of “Is my voice going to crack?,” “Do I sound silly?,” “Am I monotone?,” “Am I loud enough?,” “Did I sound angry when I told that audience member to shut the hell up or did I sound thrilled?,” etc.

Self-conscious thoughts like these not only reduce your capacity to focus on your message, they also intensity your nervousness. The more nervous you get, the less control you have over your thoughts. Bad news.

To combat this, here are 3 steps you can take to get comfortable with your humanoid communication instrument: