Practice makes you 60% better! (Scientifically proven!*)

*Okay, not actually scientifically proven, but bear with me…

Be honest, when you’ve got a presentation to do, how much time to you spend practicing it? I’m meaning standing up, speaking, without human beings in the room – compared to the time you spend on the PowerPoints, the handouts, and the content?

Practice Makes Perfect

I was in sales for ten years, and I used to practice on the train. I was rehearsing it in my head, but the thing is, that’s not practice. You really need to stand up and do it. Take it from an actor who’s spent a lot of time rehearsing. Movement Memory, used by dancers to remember complicated dance numbers is a great technique to help rehearse presentations and speeches, particularly if you use movement and gestures as I recommended in a previous post. The science is that there are two forms of long-term memory:

  1. Explicit or declarative memory that stores facts, events, people, places and objects.
  2. Implicit or non-declarative memory that retains perceptual and motor skills, such as riding a bike or typing on a keyboard. 

To remember explicit memories, such as the script of your presentation, you need to be consciously aware of the process of retrieval, which is difficult. However, implicit memories, such as driving a car, are expressed through physical action without the need to focus on every detail of that action. That’s why when you reflect back on your morning drive to work it’s a bit scary when you realise you can’t remember details because you were doing it on “auto pilot”! 

So, by rehearsing, and fully “acting out” your presentation you’re utilising your implicit or non-declarative memory to help you remember your script. The act of physically walking around and acting out your script is helping fix the lines into your memory!

Acting Out

And it’s not just presentations. This technique works in meetings as well. Any situation that’s challenging, that has any kind of emotion in it for you, practice it. Physically act it out. I like to pace around the room and play out difficult phone calls.

If you did this you will be 60% better!  Okay, I made that number up, but in my many years of experience if you practice three times, I think you will be about 60% better when you actually do it.

Give it a go for that next phone call, meeting presentation and let me know if you were indeed 60% better!

David Solomon
Managing Director, Sun and Moon Training
@SunMoonDavid

Photo copyright: dolgachov / 123RF Stock Photo

Menu