3 Reasons We Over-prepare, 5 Ways To Avoid Going Batty

I was feeling considerable pressure preparing for a three-day seminar I was to teach on “Communicating Effectively Under Pressure.” How could I be struggling with something that I had obviously mastered enough to teach others? Besides, I am a seasoned presenter.

Yet somewhere between cooking the content and serving it up, I lost confidence and control. What I thought I knew, I suddenly didn’t. What made sense in my head didn’t quite look right on my computer screen.

The pressure caused me to over-prepare, and by the time I arrived in London for the event, I was mentally and physically exhausted.

What went wrong? First, tell me that this has happened to you, right? Of course it has, or will. For me – for us — I came up with three reasons why I (we) over-prepare and five ways to prevent us from going batty in the process.

3 reasons we over-prepare

1. We see dead people.
   How many presenters, professors, and preachers have you heard rolling on endlessly without passengers – without the audience? They were so absorbed in their content, or two-stepping with technique, or shielding themselves behind PowerPoints that they forgot why they were there. Retaining listeners and causing listeners to retain what they heard seemed unimportant.

   For me, however, as I prepared my presentation and visualized the audience, all I could see on day one were faces begging to be engaged not lectured and, on day two, saying, “Huh?” and all of them looking like corpses transported from other seminars with life-changing titles.

   The presentation I had crafted from recycled, dense lecture notes would not revive them, I realized. I had started with the wrong material. The audience was my material. The more I focused on them, the smarter and clearer I got. But that meant a lot more work because I was preparing for unpredictable people not just adeptly stitching together stuff I knew.

2. We gotta believe
   Have you, like me, come across too many professional bluffers who knew their stuff but didn’t practice it—inspiring marriage counselors in broken relationships, empowerment evangelists who never would accept contrarian ideas?

   Thinking ahead to my seminar, I knew I could have danced, sounded clever, waxed passionately and convincingly. Nah, I couldn’t — or wouldn’t. I heard myself prodding, “C’mon, do you really believe that? Could you do what you’re asking your audience to do? Give me personal examples … stories. Turn information into conviction that generates passion.”

   I had to convince myself before I could convert others. And that required more time and soul-searching. It required over-preparation.

3. We want to make it damn good
   Sadly, good is acceptable these days; good gets you paid. That’s not good enough for me because too often good is just polished mediocrity. Too many seminars are good because they are pre-fabs modeled after reportedly successful seminars that can be quickly assembled, seem to satisfy buyers, and generate a profit.

   Perfectionism has its problems, too, of course. Striving for excellence has a certain cache’. However, perfectionism can create a great product – an impressive presentation – that lacks stickiness.

   Between mediocrity and perfection, I have found my standard; it’s called “damn good.” Damn good is that sense that you outdid yourself. You started with a good idea and a modicum of self-confidence and ended up with something amazing because you could never get the topic out of your mind and yet would never let it own you; you stayed in control. You stuck with the idea until you understood it enough to explain it to your mother.

   Damn good takes time, takes over-preparing.

5 ways to over-prepare without losing your mind now or later

1. Become the application. Half-way through preparing your presentation, draft a one-page plan of how you will – will, not could – apply your emerging recommendations to your own job. If the plan sounds realistic and do-able, continue preparing your presentation. If not … well, you get the point.
2. Be willing to trash. When you’re flat-lining in the wee hours from piling every piece of information you could find on the topic, stop, go to bed, and when you wake up, extract from your pile only that which will turn audience yawns into, “Hmm, I never thought of that. I bet I could do that.”
3. Assemble your work with Velcro, not screws. Prepare one solid, well-crafted presentation but then organize your notes for what-ifs: have case studies ready for the possibility of only five people rather than 12 showing up; have lots of stories should eyes glaze over during your talk; and have profiles of attendees’ organizations should you find the content out of sync with the audience’s real needs after the first day.
4. Prepare for the presentation after this one. Think of what you might learn from this presentation – you talked too much, the case studies were too generic, etc. – that would improve your next presentation. You’re now ready to do a bang-up job on this presentation.
5. You’re an expert, you’re okay. You were asked to present most likely because you are known as an expert on the topic. That said, you don’t have prove it in your presentation. Ease back, trust you smarts, and think about going into your session to mingle and chat with the audience. That’s the style that will convey much more credibility than a tedious argument with pinpoint logic.

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