The Seven Strategies of Master Presenters - Lifecycle Performance ...

EXERCISE
6-2
Manage Yourself, Difficult Participants... / 181
Keep a record of your presentation-related self-talk for week
two. You should actively intervene when you realize you
are engaging in negative self-talk. In the left-hand column
record task-irrelevant, self-depreciating, and task-depreciating
self-talk. In the right-hand column, keep a list of your
task-relevant, self-appreciating, and task-appreciating selftalk.
Remember, you can develop a code for frequently occurring
self-talk. You may wish to develop a code for
frequently occurring self-talk, for example, HP for “I hate presenting,”
NGP for “I’ve never been any good at presenting,” or BTIT for “That’s
better than I thought,” NGEx for “The point is excellent, now all I need is
a great example.”
SELF-TALK RECORDING SHEET
Negative Talk: task-irrelevant, Positive Talk: task-relevant,
self-depreciating, and self-appreciating, and
task-depreciating task-appreciating
Perfect Perfectionism
Many presenters suffer from perfectionistic tendencies. These
tendencies usually increase during times of high anxiety, and you will
need to identify the point at which your need for perfection becomes
dysfunctional. One way to do this is with a cost/benefit analysis.
For example, you can ask yourself what is the cost of developing
a 99-percent perfect presentation compared to the cost of developing a
95-percent perfect presentation. The cost of that extra perfectionism
may not be worth it. For example, one of our clients, Linda, found that
she was so focused on developing a perfect presentation that she wasn’t
getting anything done. Once she realized the cost of her perfectionism