How To Remember Your Speech

One of the most important concepts to remember when it comes to the memorization of speeches, is that not every single word has to be memorized exactly.

Rather, it is more important that you have a general idea about what you will be talking about, and have done enough research beforehand so that you are able to elaborate on specific points.

Once you begin to approach speech writing in this manner, not only will you feel much more relaxed and reduce the mental pressure and stress you have been causing yourself, but you will also perform better when you give your speech.

The reason for this is quite simple. People who try to memorize their speech word for word appear unrelaxed when they are speaking, like they are trying hard not to forget what they have been committing to memory the past week or so.

As a result, the speaker doesn’t look at the audience very often and rigidly recalls word after word without any real meaning or conviction.

The key therefore to giving a good speech is not to try and remember every word you have to say, but only the main concepts or key words you want to discuss.

However, in order to do this, you need to learn how to improve your memory so that you remember what it is you are going to talk about.

Lets now have a look at some of the things you can do to help you better remember your speech and improve your memory overall.

Improve Your Memory For Later By Doing Research Now

Start by researching the general topic of your speech. This should include gathering ideas, evidence to back up your claims and any relevant quotations, references, stories or jokes you would like to use.

Improve Your Memory By Creating A Plan

Having a good memory depends on sequencing or structuring what you learn in some way.

So after you have completed your research, it is very important that you take the time to create a plan which brings together all the ideas and material you have come up with so far.

Some people prefer doing this using a list based system, while others prefer to use mind maps. Whatever system you use doesn’t matter, as long as you are comfortable with it and it makes sense to you.

One thing you should try to incorporate into your plan however, are pictures relevant to each key theme or idea you will be talking about.

The brain tends to think in pictures, which means that if you can associate a picture with a certain key word you will find it much easier to recall later on.

Improve Your Memory By Practicing Your Speech

Now that you have created a rough outline of your speech, it’s time to practice. This can be done in two ways, in your head or out loud.

It is recommended that you do both, but focus more of your efforts on speaking your speech out loud.

The first time you run through your speech, there are likely to be times when you are lost for words and need to refer back to your plan.

This is perfectly normal, and something which will occur to anyone who is saying their speech for the first time.

However, when you do look at your plan, try to use the main keywords or topic titles you created to jog your memory, rather than reading what you have written in detail.

Your aim should be to recite as much of your speech as you can on your own, and refer to your plan only when you get stuck.

Once you have finished your first run, you will have a much clearer idea as to the structure of your speech now that you have spoken it loud.

What usually happens is that you will come up with new ideas to talk about, and may even modify your original plan somewhat. So it is also good practice to review your plan in its entirety after your first draft speech.

Improve Your Memory By Using Keywords

Create a list of the main keywords/topic titles you are going to talk about during your speech, and write them down in the order that you plan to speak about them.

This list will be your mental list that you can use when you actually give your speech, so that keep yourself on track and cover all the points you intended to.

You can keep this list as a mental list or as a paper list, so that you have something physically to refer to during your speech.

It is important however, that this list only contains keywords rather than long sentences. It should therefore be separate from the plan you have created if you want to keep these keywords on paper to refer to during your speech.

If you have keywords to look at it will jog your memory, whilst still keeping your speech fresh and not sounding like something you are just robotically recalling from memory.

Try to create a picture in your mind for each keyword, and make it as vivid as you can. Then associate the concepts you are trying to learn with each picture.

This will help to serve as a very useful memory aid, and significantly improve your memory about the core concepts when you give your speech.

Improve Your Memory By Perfecting Your Speech

Overall, keep practicing your speech over and over again as the more you do so, the better your memory will be of it later on.

Each time you practice, try to rely less and less on your physical notes, and use your mental notes instead.

If you find that you are having trouble with your mental recall of your key topics, it is likely that you have not committed them to memory properly.

In this case, go back to your main topics and come up with new ways to make the images you associated with them appear in more detail. Can you make them more colourful? More unusual? Larger? Smaller? Funny? Strange?

It may help if you lie on your bed with your eyes closed and mentally go over the pictures in your mind and the concepts you have linked to them.

The clearer you can make these mental pictures, the better your memory will be of them later on and the easier you will be able to recall them.