You may have heard the nasal voice, mumble voice, soft voice, etc. The truth is there are really no voice problems, but problems of accumulated tensions, shallow breathing and held-back projection, etc.
1. Trembling voice in presentations
This is the most common voice problems happened in my clients. The reason that causes your voice to tremble when you are nervous is that you are projecting your voice solely relying on your throat and voice box, which are not strong enough to take the high pressure as nervousness or stage fright.
2. Sounding young
Sounding young is not a problem unless it’s undermining your competence when you deal with a client who is senior than you and doubting your capability because of that. The reason that your voice sounds young is that you are only projecting your voice using part of your body, instead of a full body.
3. Speaking fast
If you speak fast, you may have tried to remind yourself to slow down but after a few minutes you went back to the fast talking again. People often ask you to repeat yourself because your voice lacks clarity and they couldn’t follow you.
If you speak fast, you are not enunciating. Look into the mirror and speak anything that comes to your mind. You’ll find your jaw is not moving much and only your lips are doing rapid movement.
If you speak fast, you may often find that you are out of breath. Your breath is shallow and you have never thought about how to use your breath properly in speaking.
Speaking fast is not only affects your clarity, but reduces your credibility and projects less confidence, especially in presentations, which makes people think that you are too nervous.
4. Purposely lowering the voice
Some of my clients when they first came to me told me that sometimes to project credibility , they purposely lower their voice so they sounded deeper. This is one of the biggest mistakes. Purposely lowering your voice to sound deeper creates damage on your vocal cords and the deeper voice won’t last long. Furthermore, it is not credible and authentic at all.
5. Shouting
When speaking to a larger group, in order to be heard, most people end up shouting. I’ve seen speakers shouting the entire time during their speech to a large audience, which can be irritating.
Shouting also happens when people are arguing. It only makes things worse and no one takes you seriously. Shouting for a small amount of time will make you lose your voice.
Some of my clients who had difficulty projecting their voice in even a meeting room wanted to be heard but didn’t want to shout.
You want to be heard clearly in a large room. You don’t want to shout but project. It can be achieved.
Learn step-by-step process on how to solve these voice problems in our upcoming one-day intensive Influence through Voice workshop on 29th March.
