Maintaining motivation is a challenge for speakers like you.

This article examines three ways you can maintain your motivation

Setting Clear Goals

You should set specific, realistic, and meaningful goals for each presentation. Knowing the purpose of your speech—whether to inform, persuade, or inspire—helps maintain your focus and enthusiasm.

An old saying is, “By the mile, it’s a trial. By the inch, it’s a cinch.”

In electronics shop in high school, while troubleshooting car radios and TVs, my high school teacher told us if we wanted to solve the problem, we must “divide and conquer.” In other words, break down the problem into more minor problems. When the smaller problems were solved, the major problem was solved.

It is the same with your goals. Setting significant goals can feel overwhelming, but breaking them down into smaller tasks makes them more manageable. You stay motivated by achieving these smaller milestones, which builds momentum.

You are more motivated when you know why you are delivering your speech. Purpose-driven goals remind you of the impact you want to have on your audience, which helps you push through challenges.

Always relate your goals to your long-term plans for your speaking career. Your time is too limited to be spending effort on a goal with a low ROI.

Tracking progress through clear goals motivates you by showing how far you’ve come. After each step, you can reflect on your improvements and adjust your goals.

It’s been said in many business books what is measured can be managed and improved. What is not measured cannot.

Numbers are vitally important in determining whether you are advancing in your speaking.

So, setting clear goals is a way to maintain your motivation.

Another is practicing positive visualization.

Practicing Positive Visualization

Visualizing success can build confidence and keep motivation high. By imagining the audience’s positive reactions and the impact of your message, you are more likely to stay motivated and energized.

You can mentally rehearse your speech by imagining a successful presentation where the audience is engaged, attentive, and appreciative. This builds your confidence and reduces anxiety, keeping motivation high.

Olympic athletes have been using this method of motivation for many decades. Positive visualization feeds your subconscious mind with positive “mind videos” that manifest in your conscious life.

You can visualize handling difficult situations, such as forgetting a line or facing a distracted audience, and imagine yourself responding calmly and effectively.

This prepares you mentally for potential challenges and keeps your motivation intact.

Remember, your audience does not notice 99% of what you perceive as a mistake in your presentation. You just think it is part of your presentation.

You should visualize the positive impact your words will have on the audience. Imagining the audience being inspired, learning something new, or taking action as a result of the speech reinforces your purpose and drive.

This positive visualization of filling the needs and wants of your audience will go a long way to bringing it into reality.

So, setting clear goals and practicing positive visualization are two ways to maintain your motivation.

A third way to maintain your motivation is to seek feedback and celebrate your success.

Seeking Feedback and Celebrating Progress

Receiving constructive feedback helps you identify areas for improvement and recognize your growth. Celebrating small achievements along the way keeps motivation strong.

Seeking feedback from trusted sources helps you recognize what you are doing well and where to improve.

Positive reinforcement boosts your confidence, while constructive suggestions give you a clear growth path.

You might shun feedback because you are fearful of it. However, feedback from others is like digging in a pure vein of gold. You may not realize it, but as a speaker, you get to choose which feedback makes sense for which you will implement changes and feedback not making sense for which you will discard.

Recognizing small achievements, such as reducing filler words, making better eye contact, or speaking without notes, motivates you to reach bigger goals.

Many small wins added together give you a significant win. Remember, nothing is wasted in a presentation. What you say, how you say it, and the communication of your body language will either enhance or detract from your presentation. The key for you is to keep the enhancements and discard the detractions.

If you track your progress over multiple presentations, you can see how far you’ve come, which provides a powerful motivational boost. This shows you that consistent effort leads to improvement.

Speaking is like a muscle in your body. It only improves with repeated exercise.

What gets measured gets improved. There is no way around this.

So, setting clear goals, practicing positive visualization and, seeking feedback and celebrating success are three ways to maintain your motivation.

Practice these, and you will find your speaking advancing.

Call to Action

• Set specific, realistic, and meaningful goals for each presentation.

• Visualize success to build your confidence and keep your motivation high.

• Encourage constructive feedback to help you identify areas for improvement and recognize your growth.

Being a confident, engaging, and effective technical speaker is a vital personal and professional asset. With more than 40 years of engineering experience and more than 30 years of award-winning public speaking experience, Frank DiBartolomeo can help you reduce your presentation preparatory time by 50%, overcome your fear of public speaking and be completely at ease, deliver your presentations effectively, develop your personal presence with your audience; and apply an innovative way to handle audience questions deftly.

Working closely with you, Frank provides a customized protocol employing the critical skills and tools you need to create, practice, and deliver excellent technical speeches and presentations. Connect with Frank and explore how he can help you become the exceptional speaker you were meant to be. Please reach out to him at frank@speakleadandsucceed.com or 703-509-4424 for a complimentary consultation. Schedule a meeting with him at calendly.com/frankdibartolomeospeaks. Listen to his Successful Speaking for Technical Professionals podcast