Member Article

Parachutes and visualisation

With Simon Raybould of Curved Vision

Yesterday my daughter threw herself out of an airplane, two miles up, as a fundraising event for Amnesty. Two miles is a long way to jump and let me assure you that it’s an even longer way to look, when you’re on the ground, trying to see what’s going on at that height, particularly when it includes your daughter and a parachute!

I’m sure any other parents amongst you will sympathise.

What’s this got to do with tips on presenting and public speaking? Well, it’s to do with nerves, fear and how to deal with them. The training my daughter had received included two techniques for dealing with fear, both of which we teach on our training days: visualisation and diaphragmatic breathing.

Let’s face it, if they work when you’re about to freefall for the first time, they’ll probably work when you’re standing in front of an audience. I’ll deal with the breathing another time (I’ve mentioned it before, too!) but let me just spend a moment or two looking at visualisation. It’s a technique where you use your imagination to go through the motions of what you want to be doing, without do it (which is useful for things such as presenting when you can’t get as much practice-time in front of an audience as you might need) but it’s not just about “imagining it working”.

The key elements to the technique are to be disciplined and structured about it - go through things carefully and in detail. Add just one element of the visualisation at a time… carefully.

Start with imagining exactly what you will/want to see. Be specific, be detailed. Once you’ve got that, add what you can hear. Again, be detailed - and don’t do it until the visual stuff is under control. Then add anything you can smell. Finally add how you feel and what you feel. Things like warmth, a draft from a window you’ve already imagined you can see would be an example of that.

It’s a method that easier to learn face-to-face than when you’re just reading it over a coffee break in your office, but it’s worth having a go!

As always, questions and comments to me at sme@curved-vision.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .