Prepare Yourself To Present

Has there been a moment for you when you prepared your material to present, but you forgot to prepare yourself mentally for the task?

For example, your notes were in order, your slide deck was impeccable, and you wore a nice outfit. But inside, you were freaking out?

You're not alone.

As a UX Designer, everything you communicate is a form of a presentation. You might share your insights or design solutions. Then you might negotiate between stakeholders and the development team to implement them. You're always hosting users during interviews or creating personas to experience the flow so you can optimize it and meet the business's goals. No matter when you communicate, you're presenting something to someone.

Peter Jensen, Ph.D., is an Olympic performance coach who wrote a book on the subject titled:

The Inside Edge: high performance through mental fitness.

In this article, I will paraphrase the techniques Jensen shares, and adapt them to UX Design, so you might mentally prepare for your next presentation, even if that presentation is simply a daily meeting with your colleagues.

To be mentally prepared, you can become aware of four aspects within your control:?

1. Adopt a positive mindset
2. Perform an energy audit
3. Circumspect your daily tasks
4. Listen to your inner dialogues

Let's go into each point in more depth, using example scenarios to explain each one.

1. Adopt a positive mindset.

According to Jensen, adopting a positive mindset is a choice. You can choose to acknowledge an opportunity instead of focusing on the danger or dread of the situation.?When you choose positivity over negativity, you might perceive an obstacle as an opportunity to grow professionally.

For example, let's pretend you have a brilliant presentation complete with animations and speaker's notes all set to present.

You verified with the tech department that they would provide the dongle and HDMI cable.

However, neither are available for you to use when you arrive.?

How might you react??

Yes, you could have brought your cables, and it's technically not your fault. Of course, you can present from your laptop.

But where is the opportunity to turn this disaster into a positive experience?

You might have an opportunity to deliver a more informal presentation and generate a discussion with your audience instead of presenting a lecture.?

To bring your opportunity to fruition, you may request 10 minutes to jot down your notes as questions on a piece of paper so you cover all aspects of your topic. And you might ask someone to help you reorganize the room, so the chairs are in a circle or semi-circle formation instead of facing a projection screen.?

2. Perform an energy audit.

You might be out of energy or have too much, and depending on the reason for your presentation, your energy level may not be where it needs to be. If you have too much energy, you might come across as abrasive or chaotic, whereas too little, you might be boring.

But how can you determine where your energy levels are and adjust them accordingly?

You can perform an audit of your energy level before the presentation and then assess if you need to bring it down or raise it. Jensen borrows a concept from Brent Rushall, an Australian sports psychologist. I'm adapting it from a numeric scale with bars and lines to colour coding like a rainbow.

Our energy rainbow's colours in our new scaling system are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

Red requires the most energy, whereas violet represents the calmest state of being. You can colour code your presentations with these colours and visually represent how much of your power they require.?

For example, let's pretend you're hosting a design team meditation to focus on breathing and relaxing.

What colour would you assign this presentation?

You might code it as violet, meaning you may be calm and quiet and use a soothing tone of voice. Ten minutes before you host this meeting, you can see how your energy level matches the colour. Suppose you're at a green but need to be at indigo or violet. You can breathe in counting to four, then exhale for a count of eight, and by repeating this exercise for a minute or two, you might lower your energy to match.?

On the other end of our rainbow, pretend your presentation welcomes recruits to your design team, amping them up about the project with a tight deadline.

What rainbow energy colour would this presentation get??

Maybe this is red because it requires a lot of energy and excitement? But what happens if 10 minutes before you're at level yellow or orange?

You might take a few minutes to engage in an exercise to increase blood flow to your brain by moving your body as you are capable. You can sing your favourite song or dance around like no one is watching you. I love to do jumping jacks, skipping or jumping on the spot. However, when I could not do these exercises for physical reasons, I would listen to a high-energy song and yell with my arms outstretched at my sides.

3. Circumspect your daily tasks.

You can have the drive to achieve your goals, and then you receive a notification, and instead, you check your email. You might find a cascading effect of distractions to preoccupy your mind and rob your time.?

Being circumspect of your time and how you allocate daily tasks means to be alert, careful, cautious, chary, conservative, considerate, guarded, heedful, safe and wary.

You may stop yourself before you begin spiralling out of control. But if you cannot, then you might audit your time spent every hour.?

Here's a list of questions to circumspect your time because it's your most valuable resource.

• What am I doing right now?
• For this moment, is this the best use of my time?
• Why am I doing what I'm doing right now?
• Is this activity bringing me joy?
• Might this activity add to my success?
• How does what I'm doing fit into my vision?
• Have I spent a moment to envision my success?
• How does my idea of success feel?

For example, let's pretend you're about to present to your leadership team a change you want to make to improve accessibility and the user's experience.

Ten minutes before the meeting, you begin to prepare; however, you receive an email notification that your team needs to resolve an issue by the end of the day.

Your mind begins to sidetrack, and you start composing an email to your team.

With one minute to spare, you realize you are not in the room you will be presenting in, and you haven't set up your equipment.

How did this happen?

Let's go through the list of questions using this example scenario.

What was I preparing, and what am I doing right now??

• I was preparing for a presentation to the leadership team, but now I'm composing an email.

For this moment, is this the best use of my time??

• No, because the leadership meeting is in the next ten minutes, and the deadline for the email is by the end of the day.

Why am I doing what I'm doing right now?

• I checked my email because I received a notification, and I allowed it to distract me.

Is this activity bringing me joy?

• No, completing this email has not brought me joy because I'm scrambling to relocate to the room for my presentation, and I haven't set up my equipment yet.

Might this activity add to my success??

• No, checking my email before a big presentation does not add to my success. Instead, a successful presentation means I will be able to make the change I'm requesting.?

How does what I'm doing fit into my vision??

• Checking my email does not fit in with my ten-minute pre-meeting preparation plan.

Have I spent a moment to envision my success??

• I did not imagine my success, and instead, I checked my email.

How does my idea of success feel??

• I win over the leadership team with my design solution.

How can I get back on track??

• I will breathe in for a count of four and exhale for a count of eight until I no longer feel frantic. I will find the room, and while setting up my equipment, I will ask if they would prefer a less formal meeting we could begin immediately without the tech stuff.

4. Listen to your inner dialogues.

Inner dialogue is the ongoing conversation you're having with yourself, inside your head, whenever it happens.?Here are four questions so you can assess if the conversations you're having with yourself are helpful or hindering your ability to perform.

1. When you listen in on those conversations, what are you saying??
2. Is it a conversation that encourages you to establish your attitude for the moment in calm and certainty?
3. Is the discussion lending itself to thoughtfulness?
4. Are you contemplating a pace that lets you achieve everything you're capable of doing?

How to respond with actionable steps

We've run example scenarios throughout this article to illustrate how the questions could help you prepare for a presentation.

As UX Designers, you may be better equipped than most people to respond with a plan because it mimics the cyclical nature of any design.?

• Observe the situation.?
• Select a method to try to help.?
• Proceed by implementing the change and reviewing your results.?

It's similar to a design cycle because it's continuously designing your attitude and mindset to prepare yourself to present.

Here are the final four questions to ask yourself while you prepare your mindset.?

1. What are the high-pressure situations in my life?
2. What impact do these high-pressure situations have on me?
3. What happens to me as a result?
4. What skills do I use to deal with these situations?

Please let me know if you find this type of article helpful!

I'm often reading books but rarely take the time to summarize what I learn as an article. It's enjoyable for me! And it helps the content sink into my brain :)

I welcome you to share your answers in the comments below if you would like! Or you can message me here on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] to start a personal conversation :)

Thanks for reading!

Bye!