Speaking Visualization Rehearsal
Mentally rehearse the whole speaking event in advance to desensitize yourself and gain a sense of agency
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 88%
A desensitization technique that replaces the useless 'picture the audience naked' advice. You calm yourself, then vividly visualize yourself moving through the entire speaking event, so that on the real day it feels familiar rather than new and novel. This gives you a sense of control and lowers anxiety.
Origin
Abrahams cites some of the oldest public-speaking-anxiety research, done at the University of Oregon in the 1980s. He notes athletes and pilots (flight simulators) use the same principle, and that new VR tools now serve the same desensitizing function.
Core principles
- 01Anxiety comes largely from fear of an unknown negative future outcome
- 02Making the event feel 'been there, done that' removes its novelty and its threat
- 03Visualization is a dress rehearsal even when you are not physically in the room
- 04It gives you a sense of agency over the event
How to run it
- 1
Calm your body first
Begin with deep breathing to settle yourself, then either close your eyes or look at a picture of the actual room.
Pro tip Find a real photo of the venue online, and look up who will be in the audience, so the visualization is concrete rather than generic.
- 2
Envision yourself in the space with the people
Picture yourself in the actual room with the actual audience you will address, not an abstract crowd.
Watch out Keep continuously calming yourself as you visualize so your body does not connect to the stress you are imagining.
- 3
Walk through the full arc
See yourself getting up to the stage, delivering the presentation, the audience receiving it well, and stepping off the stage, so the whole event is rehearsed end to end.
Pro tip It need not be long; a five-minute session done a couple of times is enough.
In the wild
Lenny describes the scariest talk he has given, a TEDx talk, and says he spent a lot of time on this visualization technique, sitting down, calming himself, and picturing the event a couple of times beforehand.
→ The technique helped him get through a high-stakes talk.
Common mistakes
Visualizing the event while staying tense
If you rehearse the scene without continuously calming your body, you risk conditioning your body to connect the venue with stress instead of familiarity.
Is it for you?
Best for
Speakers facing a known high-stakes event (a keynote, TEDx, big pitch) with time to prepare in the days before
Not ideal for
Truly spontaneous on-the-spot speaking where there is no specific event to visualize in advance
From the transcript
“so visualization it what it does is it allows you to see the event in a way that you have much more control over it”
“you see yourself not just in the moment of speaking but getting up to the stage delivering the presentation seeing it being well received thinking…”
From the episode
How to speak more confidently and persuasively
Matt Abrahams (professor, podcast host, author, speaker)