Image Credit: Steven Depolo
As public speakers we get asked to give all different types of speeches. One of the most commonly requested types of speeches is the motivational speech. This is a speech that is designed to make a very specific impact on your audience: you want to leave them feeling better about themselves – clearly this has a lot to do with the importance of public speaking. These are powerful speeches; however, just exactly how do you go about creating them?
Pump Up The Energy!
How you start a speech is always important. How you start a motivational speech is critically important. What you are going to want to do with your speech is to catch your audience’s attention. As with all audiences, they arrive at your speech with other things on their mind. Sure, they’ve come to hear you speak, but even when you take the stage, they’re not fully committed to hearing you speak – they just might drift off and start to think about other things.
That’s why you’ve got to create a speech that won’t let them do that. You’re going to have to shake them up from the start. This means that you’ll need to work a very clear proposal into your speech. This can’t be some pie-in-the-sky thing (“let’s all solve world hunger”), but rather an idea that is based on realistic thinking that together you and your audience could actually make happen.
Talk About Barriers
If what you were talking about was easy, then anyone could do it. What this means for you as a speaker is that you can’t ignore the barriers and obstacles that your audience sees before them. If you don’t take the time to give these challenges the respect that they deserve, then your audience is not going to be willing to accept the motivational message that you are going to be sharing with them.
A lot of what a motivational speech has to do with is showing your audience how they can identify the things that have been holding them back and then how they can overcome them. By doing this, you will have connected with your audience and they will feel that you truly understand their situation.
Show Why Your Way Is The Best
As a motivational speaker, your job is to show your audience the way forward. What this means is that you are going to have to tell them what the benefits of following your suggestions will be. A great deal of this is going to have to do with painting a picture of the future: what will it be if they do what you tell them to do? The mental images that you can create will determine how successful you will be.
Wrap It Up On A High Note
Just as how you start a motivational speech is important, how you end this type of speech is also important. You need to end it using high energy. After all, you want your audience to go out and change their world. This is not an easy thing to do and it’s up to you to pump them up so that they believe that they can do it.
The ending of your motivational speech needs to be made up of three different things. The first is, of course, enthusiasm. This is what will make your audience want to do what you are telling them to do. Next is determination. Those barriers still exist, determination is what is going to allow your audience to overcome them. Finally, your audience needs an action plan. This will show them how to achieve the goal that you have laid out for them.
What All Of This Means For You
Motivational speeches are powerful speeches. Motivational speeches are hard to do. However, it is because they are so powerful that as public speakers we need to make sure that we can do a good job when we are asked to deliver this type of speech. What we’re going to have to remember is that we need to take the time to create a speech that will work.
We’ve got to start our motivational speech on a high energy note so that we’ll capture the attention of our audience. We’ll have to touch on any obstacles or barriers that may be preventing our audience from taking action because if we don’t, then we won’t connect with them. We have a way that our audience can achieve their goal, we need to show them the advantages of our way. Finally, we need to end on a high note so that our audience is motivated to go out and change their world. Do this correctly, and you will have shown your audience the benefits of public speaking.
If you can get good at this motivational speech giving thing then you just might be able to truly change the lives of your audiences. Take the time to craft just the right speech and you’ll have created a powerful communications tool. Now let’s go out there and motivate some people!
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: How long do you think a motivational speech should be?
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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
When we want to get our message across to one of our friends, how do we make this happen? That’s a simple question to answer: we have a conversation with them. Conversations are simple, natural things for all of us to have and they allow us to convey the importance of public speaking. However, for some odd reason when it comes time to give a speech, everything that we’ve learned from a lifetime of having conversations just seems to go out the door. Perhaps it’s time to bring some of our conversation skills back into our speeches in order to better connect with our audiences.