Is it possible to speak with a confident voice without feeling confident?
Most people think that you have to feel confident first. Only then will your voice exude confidence. Well, that’s only half of the story.
Researches have shown that when you work on your body, which includes voice, how you feel will follow. Here, the “body” refers to body language and your voice, because voice is vibration and it is physical.
How will you sound like if you are not confident? Probably a soft voice, a dry voice (or vocal fry), or holding your breath to speak. The common problem for all of the voices is the lack of breath support.
1. To speak with a confident voice, you must use your breath to support your voice projection.
Take a breath in and speak when you breathe out. You can apply this to your conversations even if you are not breathing properly. Of course, when you learn how to breathe properly, your voice will sound even more confident.
Some of my clients said, Cynthia, the reason my voice sounds like this is because of my childhood trauma. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. But I can say, if you work on your voice, your body, it will change how you feel about yourself.
A research shared by Tony Robbins was talking about a group of depressed people. They had tried many ways to solve the depression but nothing worked. They then tried something new. The depressed people were asked to force themselves to smile in front of a mirror every day. After a while, they found that no one was depressed any more. When you work on the body, it’ll affect how you feel. It’s the same when you work on your voice.
2. To speak with a confident voice, you must speak with energy.
A voice lacks energy makes people want to fall asleep.
To speak with energy doesn’t mean you have to shout. Neither does it mean to become another people.
Besides projecting your voice with proper breath support, you’ll need to speak with passion and conviction, instead of a monotonous voice. When you don’t have passion about what you say, no one else will have passion to listen to what you say.
3. End your sentences on a firm note.
There are many different names for this, uptone, upward inflection etc.
It simply means, when you end your sentence, don’t make it sound as if you were asking a question. Instead, make it sound as a statement.
The key to applying these techniques is awareness. Pay attention to how you say what you say. You can sound confident without feeling confident.
To learn more on how you can sound confident without feeling confident, join our upcoming Influence through Voice training programs HERE.
