When Life Feels Like A Massive To-Do List
Team NTSs 
The third blog about the new communication skills mini course, Speaking Persuasively.
When Life Feels Like A Massive To-Do List
Ever opened your laptop and forgotten what you were meant to do? Stress hijacks your ability to think clearly. It also affects your ability to communicate successfully.
In the previous blogs, I gave you details of a breathing and shoulder exercise that you can do. Both can be used to help you to reclaim the mental space and to relax your physic - being relaxed and ‘in the zone’ are part of and essential for communicating effectively. They are both ‘quick fixes’. You need to learn to be aware of and manage your ‘state’ to perform at your best. (The best ‘state’ to be in, and which will allow you to communicate well, is a relaxed and responsive mind, body and voice).
Transforming the voice
In this blog, I have a vocal exercise for you so you can also work on your voice, and as with the previous breathing and shoulder exercises, it can also be used in everyday life when you need something quick and easy to do to get in to the right ‘state’ to perform as you want to. You can find somewhere on your own to do these exercises or even when siting at your laptop. (The exercise below can be done whispering or under your breath as well as out loud).
Tongue twisters are fun to do and can really get your organs of articulation (mouth, lips and tongue) moving well so that they do what you want them to do and they create sounds that are impactful.
There are lots of tongue twisters. The most famous is perhaps this one:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
You should say the twister three times slowly, and then do it three times fast. When you say it, try to over emphasise the way you produce the sounds so that it is done in an exaggerated fashion. It may look rather odd, but doing it in this way will encourage your muscles to relax.
You can also put your hand in front of your mouth to check that the ‘p’ is exploding out of your mouth and you can feel the air on your hands. If you can’t feel any air, then you need to put more force in to making it stronger. Again, you are exaggerating somewhat, but that is part of the exercise.
As always, you should repeat the exercise as well several times.
(If English is your second language and you know that you need to work on your pronunciation, then you may, in addition, wish to say it out loud in front of someone who has English as a first language so they can help you with pronouncing it correctly).
More support?
If you want more help with speaking effectively, then Speaking Persuasively is the NTSs course for you. It is a ‘quick fix’ as it is a ‘mini’ course, so it only takes a few hours to complete and can enhance the skills you already have in the area of spoken English as well as give you new tools for your metaphorical ‘tool box’.
Next Up: How 10 Minutes Can Change Your Entire Day
Next time, I will talk about the transformation that little exercises can make.
🔕 Click here to read the next post → How 10 Minutes Can Change Your Entire Day
Categories: : Speaking Persuasively