Whether you’re giving a talk, teaching, or talking to a camera…
Your performance is always much improved if you know your lines.
Checking your notes, stopping to think, breaking eye contact with the audience…
All are impediments to building a rapport.
But learning your lines is easier said than done, of course.
However!
There is a smart quirk of psychology which can help you.
I’ve been recording videos for my new University of Cambridge course on Compelling Communication Skills.
We had a great film crew, a lovely location (Queens’ College), and a splendid day weatherwise…
As you can see from the photo.
But what we didn’t have was an autocue.
(One of those clever devices which projects the words you want to say onto the front of the camera, so you can read them without appearing to do so.)
Which meant learning lines was necessary if we wanted to communicate the course as powerfully as possible.
The crew were a little concerned about whether I could do that, given I had a fair bit to say.
But happily, I could fall back on my BBC experience…
And this simple but splendid trick to help me memorise the words.
What is it? I hear you cry.
This is where explaining gets a little more difficult...
Because the answer is never the same for everyone.
What you’re looking for is some movement, repetition, or trick which can help you.
My version is to walk back and forth, repeating the words, until they fix in my mind.
It worked a treat with the Compelling Communication Skills videos.
We had them all sorted within a couple of hours. And thus a happy crew!
There are probably an infinite number of variations on this trick.
The key is finding what works for you.
I’ve seen other people fiddle with a piece of jewellery, write out the words time and again, close their eyes and sit in a quiet place, tap their feet in time with their lines, mouth them at a mirror, and many other oddities besides.
Don’t worry if yours is weird. Everyone’s is, in its own way.
If it works, it works, and is worth practising because it helps you perform at your peak…
Even if you have to disappear somewhere private to spare your blushes as you indulge in your own strange line learning way!
By the way: Do you have a quirky way of learning your words?
If so, please let me know in the comments.
I'd be fascinated to hear.
