15 Best Ways to Speak With Clarity and Confidence during Communication

15 Best Ways to Speak With Clarity and Confidence during Communication

This post provides extensive ideas you can apply to make your communication effective by speaking with clarity and confidence.

The purpose of communication is to pass across relevant and timely information.

Communication is complete when there is feedback or reaction from the receiver.

At this point you can say that communication has taken place.

Among several hindrances to effective communication is lack of clarity during communication.

There are a lot of things that could be attributed to as causes of lack of clarity during communication.

However, this article will not be discussing the causes of lack of clarity, rather it will discuss the best ways to speak with clarity and confidence during communication.

15 Ways to Speak with Clarity and Confidence during Communication

Avoid the big words as much as you can

Sometimes you could be tempted to try to impress your audience through the use of unfamiliar words that require some outrageous skills to pronounce.

This is something you should avoid doing in the cause of communication. If there is any simpler word to replace that with, then consider using it.

The use of big words or vocabularies could actually let you down if you make mistakes in pronouncing them.

That could lead to some sort of embarrassment you wouldn’t like.

So stay away from the big words as much as you can.

Also, when you are using some big, unfamiliar words, it becomes difficult for your listeners to grasp what you have in mind to pass across.

This can only lead to frustration and make listening to you a boring and fruitless effort by your listeners.

2. Be temperate in your speech

This is where the speed at which you talk is put under check. There is no doubt that some people are born with the ability to rap words while some are known to be slow speakers.

These are two extremes you may discover a lot of people find themselves in.

However, the speed of speech of a person with training and constant practice, one can ultimately learn how to be moderate and temperate in communication.

So, training is recommended if you find yourself in any of the brackets above.

There is no way your listeners will enjoy talking to you if you are not temperate in your communication.

This is important as some people will like to jot down what you are saying.

When you are uncontrollably fast or slow, your listeners will not be eager to listen any further.

3. Be a good writer

There is a big relationship between writing and speaking. Seldom do you see a good writer who is not a good speaker.

The two forms of communication work closely together. So learning the art of writing well could help you become a good speaker with clarity.

Remember that writing is a form of communication alongside speaking.

Learn the art of writing and play around with words and where the words can be fixed or used in different contexts.

Try to know the use of words and the different meanings in different contexts.

When you do your writing, try to envisage yourself saying those exact words as in a real life scenario.

Try to know how those words sound and if the words are appropriate.

This could help you go a long way in becoming an excellent communicator.

4. Keep the point of communication in mind

This is an important point to note during communication. If you don’t understand the purpose or point of communication, you may make a mess of the whole communication process.

The essence of communication is to pass information to the end user. This involves some processes and parties.

The parties involved are the speaker who is the first party, the person spoken to as the second party, and the person or thing spoken about as the third party.

So, the essence of communication is to ensure that information gets to the end user.

This means that you have to take cognizance of the end user and ensure that you communicate in such a way that the end user will not struggle to digest the information.

5. Control your breath

Breath control is very necessary in communication. This is because breathing could help you communicate better with the right tone without hurting your vocal cord, especially when you have a little distance between you and the people you are communicating with.

You need to practice how to breathe while speaking. That is why it is not ideal to rush and overly slow down your speech.

This could result in difficulty in breathing. Be moderate in your speed of talking and you will be able to control your breathing.

Breath control can help you avoid injuring your vocal cord while speaking.

Breath control is important mostly when you have minutes and possibly up to an hour of speech to make.

You take a little break and catch your breath before you continue.

6. Practice presentation in front of your mirror

Your mirror is your number one audience. Standing in front of your mirror to practice how to talk or address people will help you see some things ordinarily you don’t know about your body posture and movement whenever you are addressing people.

When you stand in the mirror to rehearse what you want to present, watch your body movement, especially the movement of your arms and your legs while you talk.

While you look at yourself, you will see that there are some aspects you need to improve on.

So, take a lot of time to look at yourself in the mirror while doing your practice and ensure you take note of every detail you notice while doing so.

This is a good way of aligning what comes out of your mouth with your body movement, especially your feet and your hands.

7. Work on your body language

What gives communication more meaning or what makes communication interesting or lively is your body movement.

Your body language is more convincing than what comes out of your mouth. This is the reason you have to work on your body language.

Your body language can show how convincing or unsure you are in your speech and as you know, one thing about speaking with clarity is that your confidence must be seen, otherwise your communication (speech) may not be taken wholly.

Ensure that your body language is all positive and convincing. This is sure to help you speak with more clarity.

The movement of your hands and other parts of your body should align and validate whatever you are saying at every point in time.

8. Keep practicing

This is the most important thing you should do. There is no way you can perfect speaking with clarity and confidence if you don’t take your time to practice what you want to say.

There is no way you can achieve this feat without seeing regular practice as a must for you.

Practicing in front of your mirror is one of the ways you can practice your speech.

When you stand in front of your mirror, look at yourself while you speak and watch your body language.

In that scenario, envisage yourself standing in front of your audience and know if what you are doing is good enough.

Also, your practice should not be a one-time affair or something you do only when you have something to do speech-wise.

It is something you should keep doing whether or not you have a speech to make or not, and whether you feel like it or not.

9. Repeat the hard words

Although you are advised to stay away from the big words, sometimes you may not totally stay away from them especially if those words could portray exactly the message you want to put forward.

Some of those words could be hard a bit to pronounce.

It will not be a good idea to make use of words that you have not practice how to pronounce.

It is better to practice those words and ensure that you perfect their pronunciation rather than struggling to pronounce them in front of your audience.

Take your time to find their meanings and ensure that they are exactly the words you need before you proceed to perfecting their pronunciations.

This will help you communicate better with little or no mistakes whatsoever in your communication.

10. Use friendly words

Be friendly with your words. Being friendly with your words could help you relax yourself knowing the fact that the person or people you might be communicating with are not enemies but friends.

So, the use of friendly words should not be seen as a bad idea.

Build your vocabularies to have more of friendly words or in business sense customer friendly words.

Try to be more active or proactive in your speech and ensure that the words you want to use are not offensive or sound negative.

So, the use of friendly words should be one of the most important things you should consider in your speech.

There is no way you can gain the attention and approval of your audience when your words are not friendly and are mainly negative.

11. Pay attention to your tone

Your tone matters a lot in your communication. The tone you use in your communication could go a long way to determine how your speech is interpreted by your audience.

So, there is no way you can overlook the place of tonality in your communication.

It is important that you should include management of your tone during your regular practice.

You should understand that nobody enjoys communication in a harsh tone and should watch out for this and ensure that you do not sound rash in your tone.

When you are able to work on your tonality, you could correct, rebuke, or admonish audience without sounding overly aggressive or disrespectful.

Also, understand that you don’t necessarily need to sound harsh for you to make yourself understood.

12. Warm up your vocal cords

The vocal cord is one of the most important components of the voice responsible for the production of sounds.

When it is hurt, speech becomes difficult and sound becomes uninteresting and unclear.

So, taking care of the vocal cords is important for clarity of speech in communication.

Before you speak, try to warm up the vocal cords.

This is important particularly if it is going to be a long speech.

It is important that you start from low pitch and stabilize with a good speech over time.

There is no need for you to start up with a high pitch because you might struggle to sustain it.

So, this entails warming up your vocal cords and taking care of your vocal cords regularly.

Eating of oily or greasy foods prior long speeches will do more harm than good in your speech likewise taking drinks that are too cold.

They are not advisable.

13. Stay hydrated

Get your voice hydrated always for better clarity. One of the reasons a lot of people tend to get their voice cracked is because they happen to keep the voice dehydrated for long hours.

This is not a good practice and generally not healthy for the body.

So, before you engage in communications that involve speeches, ensure that you have hydrated your voice and if possible, have your water with you in the process, and take it from time to time to ensure you don’t get your voice cracked in the process.

Staying hydrated does not generally support the idea of taking carbonated drinks as they are not a good option.

Water is good and the best in every scenario, especially water that is not too cold.

Warm water remains the best but due to weather conditions across different places, water of a mild temperature is not a bad idea.

14. Listen to yourself

Listening skills could be helpful in this case. You have to listen to yourself and be ruthless in your assessment of yourself.

Yes, if you are ruthless with your assessment of yourself, then you will not struggle to contain the assessment of you by others out there.

Sometimes, it is not a bad idea to record yourself when you are talking.

When you record yourself, you will have time to note a lot of things which you may not be able to note at the point you were speaking, such as your tonality and tempo.

So, listening to yourself will give you an ample time to make observations and find a way to make amendments.

This is a good practice, especially if you are the type that practices a lot.

Therefore, listen to yourself and compare it with what others are saying and make the corrections.

15. Get a coach

For anything you desire to accomplish professionally, you may actually need a coach.

The role of a coach in speech is one which you may have to take seriously.

The role of a coach is to help you get professional in your speech.

A good coach is one of the people who will help you through the path of professional speech presentation and other forms of communication.

There is a need for you to have a coach.

So it is an advice for you to find a coach to help you come good in your speech presentations.

It is the coach that can tell you the perfect tone and help you with some habits you may need to overcome so that you can speak with clarity and confidence in your communication.

Conclusion

Without clarity and confidence, there won’t be effective communication no matter how you look at it.

So, among all the causes of lack of effective communication, lack of confidence and clarity should be the two you must tackle if you must excel in communication.

This post provides ideas you can apply to speak with clarity and confidence during communication.

Take your time and go through the 15 points discussed above and see where you are getting it wrong and then effect the necessary adjustment.