What To Do When Everything Goes Blank
It can happen at any time. You're sailing along smoothly. Then, all of a sudden, you go blank. You're up there alone, without a safety net and with no one to bail you out. When that happens, what can you do to get back on track?
Forgetting momentarily is not an uncommon occurrence. It need not keep you from maintaining control. Going blank happens. The only question is how will you deal with it.
Maintain eye focus.
Continue to maintain eye focus with your listeners. Besides its other benefits, strong, direct eye focus can reduce your anxiety. Focus on one person for a few seconds with a neutral expression. It will probably look as if you're pausing purposefully, reinforcing your last point. This simple focused pause may be all you need to get back on track and is infinitely better than looking up to the ceiling in despair. Do not broadcast your blank-out by letting your eyes dash about as if you're about to be attacked by a thundering horde. Your audience is not your enemy. Focusing on them, one at a time, will actually help keep you on track in the first place, as well as aid in your recovery (See our article on eye focus in our Fall 2003 issue of The Total Communicator.)
Buy some time.
If your focused pause doesn't do the trick, you can check your notes or your slide. If this is not an option, you sometimes try repeating the last thing you said. That will buy you even a brief moment that can help trigger memory. If appropriate, you can ask if anyone has any questions bearing on what you've covered so far. That too can allow you time to recover.
About using speaker notes...
Keep your notes nearby, in large enough font so that you can read them easily. The ideal notes are actually personal visual aids, large and simple enough that you can get what you need from them in a glance. You shouldn't have to flip wildly through your notes as if you're searching for a lifeline. You can learn from rehearsal which notes are most important to you, and boil it down to those. You can also use images or slides to remind you of your place in the presentation. Make sure you use full sheets of paper for your notes because note cards tend to be too small and too easy to shuffle out of order. That said, even full pages should have prominent page numbers, and you should make sure they're in order before you need to find your way through them.
Visual aids are for your audience, but may still serve you
In creating your visual aids, keep in mind that their purpose is to serve the audience, not to give you a script to follow. Use your notes for that function. Your visuals should not replace what you say out loud, but instead support your oral statements, ideally with graphic representations that do things your words alone could not. That said, if you get stuck, you may be able to look to your visual aid for help, but don't fall into the trap of reading from it for the rest of your presentation. You're there to address the audience, not a screen with slides projected onto it.
If all else fails, ask for help.
In some settings, it is acceptable to ask the audience where you were; just don't do it repeatedly. Do it causally and sparingly. This tends to be more appropriate in more casual settings, particularly a more interactive environment. It is also more acceptable if it follows an interruption of some kind such as a question or disruption.
An ounce of prevention.
The better you prepare, the better you'll be able to deal with whatever situation may arise. While going blank can't always be avoided, you can still sharply reduce the chances it will happen by preparing and rehearsing properly in the first place. If you try to memorize your remarks verbatim, for example, you'll only increase your chances of going blank. Instead of memorizing every word you'll say, internalize your key messages. That will help you understand why you're speaking the words you're speaking, and actually result in a more natural delivery. And that thought process in itself can help you recover quickly if you do go blank. If for some reason you must follow a script verbatim, realize that you will need to rehearse three times as much as you would speaking from internalized key messages. Otherwise, the verbatim script will sound stiff and meaningless—you need the rehearsal to add back emphasis and intonation of natural speech that we tend to lose when we read a verbatim text.
Rehearse. Then rehearse again.
There are good reasons performers work so hard in rehearsal. It gives them greater control over their material. It builds confidence, so that if you do go blank at some point, you're more apt to stay calm in what could otherwise be a moment of panic. This part of your preparation should include rehearsing out loud. Rehearse until you're completely in command of your key points. The precise words will not matter as much as the underlying thought. You'll then be much better prepared for any problem that might come up. (For additional reasons you should rehearse, see our article on rehearsing.)
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