Life, as you know and experience has always been hard. You may have tried various things to make yourself motivated no matter how big the waves of challenges and problems are crashing upon you. You may have encountered or listened to an inspirational speech before which may have helped and inspired you to continue winning in life. Now, you may want to create one for yourself but you do not know where exactly you should be starting. This article will help you in making one with the help of these six speech examples.
What Is an Inspirational Speech?
Let’s define inspirational speech by separating the two terms.
What is an inspiration? According to the Oxford Dictionary, inspiration means the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.
What is a speech? Merriam-Webster defines speech as the power of expressing or communicating thoughts by speaking.
Now, if we combine the two together: inspirational speech is a kind of speech that persuades or convinces people that they can succeed and win in life. Inspirational speeches would often include success and uplifting stories and real-life situations and experiences that the speaker thinks the people listening to it will be moved and inspired to do greater and better things in their life.
Sample Inspirational Speech
Transcripts of Famous Inspirational Speeches
Alumna Inspirational Speech
What Makes an Inspirational Speech Successful?
An inspirational speech drives people to change for the better. If you want to make your inspirational speech successful, you have to make sure that you drive them to change. Here are three simple tips that will make your inspirational speech successful:
Share Your Personal Story
Always include your personal story in your speech. Although we are living in different lives, chances are, there are a lot of people who can relate with your struggles and some would also want to prepare when they are expecting to experience the same struggle as yours. When you share your personal story, you do not only touch the topics they can relate with but you can also touch their hearts and feelings and nothing can be as moving as when your feelings are touched.
Tailored to the Audience
An inspirational speech is only effective if the audience you are delivering the speech to can relate to it. You cannot expect to inspire people with the age bracket of 12-15 years old and your inspirational speech is all about college fresh graduate dilemmas. Before you are going to write for your speech make sure that you ask the organizers what the theme of the event is as well as the age bracket of the audience.
Make Every Point Connected and Relevant
You cannot also expect inspiring people when the points of your speech are all over the place. In your introduction, give at least three points and give a brief talk about it but on the body, elaborate more and in the conclusion, make sure you repeat the three points again, summarize everything and do not add more ideas. An inspirational speech that is well-crafted can not only inspire people but it will also make them understand more.
How to Give an Inspiring and Memorable Speech
Now, you may have a little knowledge of how to make your inspirational speech successful but your question now is, how do you exactly make your inspirational speech actually inspiring and memorable for your audience? Here are five simple tips that will make your inspirational speech inspiring and memorable:
1. Grab your audience’s attention
This is an old trick in the book but this trick always works wonders. Why? Because your inspirational speech is for your audience. You can grab their attention by starting your inspirational speech with a mind-blowing quote o question, your personal story, a joke, or play a moving video. You can do everything as long as you do not bore your audience at the start of your inspirational speech.
2. Always be upbeat.
Another possible thing that could make you lose your audience’s attention is when you would be delivering your inspirational speech lousy and uninteresting. Be upbeat especially in the introduction part of your inspirational speech. Sure, you have a sad story to tell but share that in the middle of your inspirational speech when you have already caught their attention in the introduction part of your inspirational speech. You are to deliver an inspirational speech and you are not there to sing a lullaby and make people sleep.
3. Do not literally read your inspirational speech in front of your audience.
Reading your inspirational speech on a paper in front of your audience inspires them to do one thing: when it’s their turn to deliver a speech one day in their lives, they will think it’s all right to deliver a speech on a paper. Reading your inspirational speech on a paper can make you less credible. Some people might question your credibility, and would ask whether you really are fit to deliver a speech or not. There might be times when reading it on a paper is all right like when you would deliver a graduation speech. But it is really best if you memorize your inspirational speech. You can always make use of a power point presentation if you have a hard time memorizing. And additionally, practice makes perfect so before presenting your inspirational speech, you must always practice practice, and practice.
4. Share your personal story.
This is a repetitive tip but this, like grabbing your audience’s attention, is an old trick in the book but always works wonders. Everyone loves to listen to stories especially from people who are known for the struggles or field. Even if people do not exactly relate to it, people would still love to listen to stories. Make sure you include only the ones sensible and relatable with your main points, or else people would think your speech is all over the place, and they would not be able to understand it anymore.
5. Make the audience want more.
This tip does not necessarily mean you leave your audience hanging with your inspirational speech. It means that you would drive your audience to want more ideas, information, and lessons about your inspirational speech. A sign that you left them wanting for more of your wisdom is right after your inspirational speech or the entire event, they would come up to you, ask you a lot of questions, and ask for any way to contact you. End your speech with a round of applause or a bang and never ever leave them with nothing to bring and that is the learning they can generate from your inspirational speech.
Motivational Speech Sample
Simple Inspiration Speech Example
Success and Failure Inspirational Speech
Elements of an Inspirational Speech
Make sure you always include the following elements in your inspirational speech so that you will be able to write a successful, effective, and of course, inspirational speech:
1. Optimism
An optimistic inspirational speech would give and ignite hope to its readers. Make sure that your motivational speech truly delivers this element. One proof that your speech has successfully included this element in your inspirational speech is when right after your speech, your audience is filled with so much hope in their eyes that they are very much willing to change for the better or to continue becoming better because they have been inspired by your speech.
2. Call to Action
Your inspirational speech must always provide objectives that would call your audience to action. It is pointless to feel inspired but you do not actually act out what you have learned about. Also, make sure that what you are trying to call to action is something anyone can act out and are achievable. You may also see special occasion speech.
3. Passionate and Personal
A passionate inspirational speech often comes sincerely from the heart and mostly, the things that come from the heart are often based on experience. Making an inspirational speech out of personal experience makes our heart pour out These are the kinds of inspirational speeches move, appeal, and inspire people.
