acceptance speeches

Receiving a special award, honor or promotion is an exciting and rewarding experience.  But to many people, they immediately begin to worry about having to give their acceptance speech. In reality, acceptance speeches are usually fairly short, so there’s no real need to worry if you’re humble or nervous about giving a speech. The purpose is just to acknowledge appreciation for being given the award.

Below are several steps you can to take when writing an award acceptance speech to help prepare and reduce your stress.

1. It’s best to begin by finding out how much time you will have to give the speech so that you can plan your speech accordingly.
2. Once you know how much time you’ll have for the acceptance speech, write an introduction that expresses your appreciation. The first thing we suggest you say in any acceptance speech is “thank you” to those who are presenting you with the award and to all those who have nominated you.
3. Acknowledge those who helped you along the way to make it possible to achieve the accomplishment.
4. Write about the accomplishment and the process you went through that led up to your being recognized for the award.
5. Write about how you got involved with the project, company or organization. This is a good place to mention anything funny or inspirational that happened during the process.
6. Explain how this experience has changed your life for the better.
7. End the speech with a bang. Once again thank all those who are giving the award to you. We suggest you close with a statement that will make your audience remember you. Also, thank those again who gave the award to you so that they really feel appreciated!

Based on the time available to give the speech, once you have your speech prepared, practice what you have written to determine if you need to shorten it or lengthen it. We suggest you rehearse the speech a few times to make you feel comfortable with saying the words out loud. This will also help you memorize the speech so that you can deliver it with confidence You can keep a few note cards on hand during the acceptance of the award, but hopefully you’ll be familiar enough with the content that you can recite your heart-felt appreciation without reading it word for word.