25 public speaking goals for students, for work and for your first big talk

Public speaking goals for beginners

Beginner goals are tiny and frequent, so that speaking becomes an ordinary thing you do.

• Speak up once in every meeting or class for a month.
• Ask one question at a public event.
• Give a 1 minute introduction or toast.
• Record a 2 minute talk on your phone and watch it.
• Read out loud for 5 minutes a day for 2 weeks.

Delivery goals

Delivery goals are things you can count on a recording of yourself.

• Use fewer than 5 filler words in a 5 minute talk.
• Finish a 3 minute script in 3 minutes, not in 2.
• Pause for 2 seconds after every key point.
• Look at the audience, not the slides, for a whole talk.
• Speak for 3 minutes with no notes.

Preparation goals

Preparation goals are the ones that decide the talk before you stand up. A pitch is a short talk with a question at the end, which is why they overlap with sales goals.

• Rehearse every talk out loud 5 times.
• Build every talk around one message and three points.
• Finish your slides 2 days before each talk.
• Open with a story in your next 5 talks.
• Record every talk and watch it within a week.

Practice goals

Practice goals count times you spoke, in any room, to any number of people.

• Give 12 talks in 12 months.
• Go to 20 meetings of a speaking club.
• Record 30 short talks in 30 days.
• Speak in front of people 50 times this year.
• Give the same talk 3 times and change one thing each time.

Bigger stage goals

Bigger goals are one step past the room you are used to. The hardest version is a talk in another language, and language learning goals build up to it.

• Present to your whole team or your whole class.
• Give a 10 minute talk with no slides.
• Speak at one meetup or conference.
• Teach a one hour workshop.
• Give one talk in a second language.

What is a good public speaking goal?

A good public speaking goal is something a recording can prove. A review of 35 years of goal research found that specific, hard goals lead to higher performance than being told to do your best. "Be a better speaker" cannot be checked. "Fewer than 5 filler words in 5 minutes" can be counted by anyone with the video.

Set goals about the talk and about the reps. One delivery goal tells you what to fix. One count of talks makes sure you get enough chances to fix it. Twelve talks in a year is one a month.

Ask one person to watch and count for you. Someone who knows your goal and reports back is an accountability partner, and research on progress monitoring found the effect was larger when progress was reported to someone else.

How to track public speaking goals

Log every time you speak, the same day. A review of 138 studies found that people who monitored their progress reached their goals more often, and that recording it beat keeping it in your head.

Talks and rehearsals are amounts that add up. Days you spoke up are a day count, the shape most work challenge ideas use.

Nerves do not fade on a schedule you can feel. A picture that fills up one talk at a time shows how many times you have already done the hard thing.

Frequently asked questions

What are examples of public speaking goals?

Give 12 talks in 12 months. Rehearse every talk out loud 5 times. Use fewer than 5 filler words in a 5 minute talk. Speak for 3 minutes with no notes. Each one can be counted or checked on video.

What is a SMART goal for public speaking?

A goal with a number and a date. For example: give a 10 minute talk with no slides at the team meeting on 1 June, after rehearsing it out loud 5 times.

What are good public speaking goals for students?

Speak up once in every class for a month, record a 2 minute talk and watch it, and rehearse every presentation out loud 5 times. All three fit inside a normal school week.