The three mental roadblocks to making great videos
Is it just me or do you also find it difficult to just be yourself when doing a video?
Do you find yourself speaking strangely and not being you overall?
I do.
I struggled with this for some time, so I decided to explore it further and write about my findings. I explored my own experience and also asked others about theirs.
Common problems when doing videos of yourself
A common problem that can arise when speaking on camera is that you start to speak with what I call a ‘video voice’ and even your facial expression is not your ‘usual’ expression. It’s your ‘video face.’
The video face and video voice are when you have a more-or-less blank, emotionless facial expression and speak in an emotionless, clinical – or what we think is a ‘professional’ – manner.
Don’t get me wrong, of course we do need to speak professionally, but the problem is what we think professional looks like. If you watch a good speaker you’ll find they are quite animated in their voice, body language and facial expression.
It’s important to speak in a clear and engaging way and to let your personality shine through!
People are not watching your video to see you act like someone else; they’re watching your material to find out more about what YOU are about and that necessarily includes your personality.
When I first started doing videos I couldn’t snap out of my video voice and video face.
I realised this was coming from anxiety, so I had to dig deeper and ask myself what was I afraid of?
I concluded that it’s actually pretty normal to be afraid of releasing a video of yourself to the world. And this in itself was quite comforting.
After all, it’s a form of public speaking, just in a different format. You are keenly aware that your words will be received by an audience that you don’t know – and an audience of potentially thousands of people.
For me, what it came down to is three bad mental habits. I’ll go through each one individually.
The three mental roadblocks to making great videos
The Inner Critic
The first one was the inner critic. I would do a video and then when I watched it, I felt it was appalling. I honestly couldn’t bear to watch it.
The way I solved this, and I highly recommend this to anyone doing videos, was to show it to friends and colleagues who themselves produced videos.
I asked them for honest feedback and I was deeply encouraged by what they had to say. It also helped me to see that I had to stop believing my inner critic.
It’s great to evaluate your own video and see where you need to improve – that’s an excellent skill to have – but when the inner critic comes into play you’ll notice the difference as it’s not helpful feedback. It’s exaggerating the negative qualities of your performance in a way that completely undermines your confidence.
Perfectionism
The second roadblock is perfectionism. There’s nothing wrong with taking two, three or even five takes of a video but when you’re getting into 15 or more takes then this is definitely the perfectionist at play.
When you do so many takes of the same material, in the short term you lose the passion and enthusiasm behind your message, mainly because you’re totally exhausted!
In the long term, it takes all the fun out of sharing your message and making videos.
There’s also nothing wrong with editing the video and just doing short takes of each part. In fact, this is a great tool, so make the most of video editing to help you produce good quality videos.
However, if you edit heavily this is more time-consuming whereas if you just speak naturally for a few minutes without too much editing, making videos will be much easier and less time-consuming.
Fear and insecurity
Everyone will have some fear about putting out a video to the world.
A useful practice is simply to ask yourself what am I afraid of? What is this about? What’s the worst that can happen?
Try to focus more on your audience and the message you want to put across and less on yourself and your fears.
See my other blogs on fear if you’re interested in delving deeper into this area. I highly recommend it as it can be the gateway to you becoming a more confident you.
Moving beyond the mental roadblocks to being an authentic speaker
Being authentic on video is important because it allows people to see who you are and what you stand for.
If you’re telling people about your business they need to see your personality shine through your message. This is a big part of why your client will choose you over someone else.
Allowing your personality to shine is also part of your branding. Branding isn’t just about your logo: it’s so much more than that.
It’s about who you are as a person.
The person running the business.
And ultimately it will attract your ideal clients as they see the person behind the brand.
To convey your message with impact your audience needs to see your passion, your why, and subsequently the voice this gives rise to.
Your voice.
Your business needs you to speak up for it!
Are you ready to speak with confidence on camera, position yourself as an expert and attract your ideal client?
The Breakthrough Virtual Speaker programme may be the perfect fit for you! Learn more here.
