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Pacing Yourself

Talking faster when you’re nervous is a perfectly normal reaction.

Plenty of people do it.

But it does make you hard to understand, and sometimes it can even set off a vicious cycle where talking faster makes you even more nervous than you were before.

That’s why it’s important to learn to pace yourself , to control how fast you’re speaking.

In this lesson, you’ll get some tips and strategies for getting the nervous speed-up under control.

We’ll start with practice strategies - these are things you can do beforehand to prepare yourself for a smooth and well-paced speech.

Then, we’ll go over some techniques you can use as you’re actually speaking to keep your words from running away with you.

Practicing & Prep

Pacing yourself well isn’t a switch you can flip on and off.

It’s something you have to learn through practice. Think of it as a habit you have to develop. Here are some tips and techniques to use as you’re practicing for the big day:

Practice with a metronome.

A metronome is an instrument that musicians use to keep the beat - basically, you can tell it how many times you want it to beep every minute, and the metronome will automatically tick away at a steady pace.

You can also get metronome videos online if you don’t have a physical one.

To practice with a metronome, re-create the speaking situation you’re practicing for and deliver a pretend speech.

Match your speaking pace to the beat of the metronome and let the steady ticking serve as a kind of background reminder to talk at the same pace. This will help you avoid the instinct to speed up as you go along.

If you will have a time limit, practice with that. Many kinds of public speaking give you a set time limit. You might have to give a 10-minute class presentation or speak for 1 minute on a standardized test. If that’s the case, practice with that time limit ahead of time. This will help you get a feel for how fast you need to talk to fit the time and how much information you can really fit in at a normal speaking pace.

Think about why you speak fast and take steps to address those issues ahead of time. Is it because you’re nervous? Careful planning and practicing in situations that simulate the actual event can often help with that. Is it because you’re trying to say more things than you can realistically fit into the time you have?

That’s a completely different problem;

for that, you’ll need to write down the outline of your points and decide what non-essential items you can cut.

Remember that it’s better to say one thing well than two things badly.

On the Day

You’ve practiced, you’ve prepared, and now it’s crunch time.

Here are some strategies you can use when you actually have to get up and speak.

Use your fingers to tap out a rhythm - physically tap out a slow, steady beat on your leg or the podium or desk.

This is a reminder to your brain to stay on track, just like the metronome was in practice.

Pause and take a deep breath every few sentences.

This will force you to stop and re-evaluate your pace.

You can use a pause like this in the same place you’d use a paragraph break in writing, or just pause after you’ve said something especially important.

Your pause should be at least as long as it takes you to say ‘take it slow’ in your head.

It also helps to pause briefly if you notice yourself speeding up.

This can stop the speed-up in its tracks and get you right back to a regular pace right away.

If you have an audience, enlist a friend.

If you’re speaking to a human audience, ask a friend to sit in front and give you a signal if you’re talking too fast so you can adjust your pace.

Preferably, this should be a signal that the rest of the audience won’t even notice.

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, you got some tips for pacing yourself while you’re speaking.

Whether you’re taking a test of spoken English or nervous about public speaking, like class presentations, using these strategies should help you make your speaking more understandable.

Practice with a realistic time limit, and use a metronome to help you stay on pace.

Before your speech, think about the reasons why you speak too fast and make a plan for addressing them.

During your speech, use finger tapping to maintain a rhythm.

After every few seconds of your speech, or if you notice that you’re starting to speed up, pause and collect yourself.

If you’re speaking to an audience, ask a friend to help you stay on pace.

Using these strategies will help you keep your speaking to a pace that’s clear and easy to understand.