You shouldn’t say every word slowly or it will start sounding stilted, slow, and like “real speech.” New speakers usually just need to slow their pace a bit. They need to say what they’re saying quickly enough to sound alive, slowly enough to be understood, and calmly enough so the words don’t get mixed together.
Usually, speakers start talking fast at a specific part of their talk. After the opening line, maybe they want to get it over with, maybe during a supporting example because they’re not sure how the rest of the story will go, or maybe at the closing line. Rather than try to slow down the entire speech, slow down those particular spots in your speech.
Read a part of your talk out loud and choose three words you want people to understand. Say those words a little louder, but not in a super dramatic way. Maybe that’s a key concept or an action you took. Maybe that’s the thing everyone is complaining about. Whatever words those anchor words are in your talk, when you read it aloud, say those words just a little bigger than the tiny little connecting words. That will help your pace without it sounding like you’re speaking slowly.
Your breathing controls pace but not in a “just breathe and it will get slower” way. Choose one place in your talk where you will take a breath on purpose. Maybe right after that opening line, or right before a transition. Just stand up with relaxed shoulders and take a breath and say one sentence. Then breathe again and say the next sentence. You don’t say, “I’m not calm, but I just need to take a breath, so I’ll just do it.” You’re saying, “My pace will be slower.” That works better.
It helps you to know the pace at which you are talking. Read a part of your talk out loud with a timer. Read for about 30 seconds and see what you covered during that time. Did you read the part about the main point of your story? If you got to the end of the idea too quickly then reread it, but change two things. Pause after that first sentence and make sure that last sentence lands in a clear way. If it just feels a little bit slower to you, it may sound way more clear to the audience. You usually think your pace is slower when it really isn’t.
Don’t make your pace slower by reading your talk word-for-word. If you’re reading word-for-word then you’re going to speed up your pace because you’re trying to get to the end of that last exact word on your list. It’s safer to have a small outline that just says, opening line, main point of my talk, supporting example, closing line of my talk. When you know where you’re going, you can recover from missing a word without going faster to cover it up, and you won’t make your eyes go down to the paper, just enough to remind you which way you should go.
When your speech sounds like you, just sounds like what you would say normally, it’s much easier for people to follow. Your audience probably won’t notice when you go slow to say something, they’ll just notice what you were talking about or where they were supposed to listen for what’s coming next, or just make sure that closing line lands in a clear enough way.