TJ Walker explains that mumbling and speaking too quickly are usually caused by nervousness and insufficient preparation. He recommends practising your speech on video (ideally with people in the room), reviewing volume, speed, and articulation, and iterating until you like how you look and sound; he notes physiological causes are rare and that there is no quick fix.
Often when I speak, I mumble or speak too quickly. How can I slow down the velocity of my speech patterns and speak in a clear way? That is a problem many people face. There's an easy, simple answer. You have to practice your speech, your presentation on video, and you have to really figure out, is this the right speed? Most people who are nervous do tend to speak faster than normal. That makes it harder to hear. Sometimes that can blend into mumbling, and it makes them come across as nervous and uncomfortable. So it all comes down to how you prepare. It's not preparation. By looking at text on a screen and rewriting it for 20 hours, for two weeks before you have to stand up, speak, record it on video, preferably with a couple of people in the room, even if it's family member or friends who don't even care about the subject. But if they are sitting 10ft away from you and can tell you, I can't hear you, you're mumbling, you know, to adjust the volume. Now, there are a few people, a small percentage of people, who have physiological problems where they simply can't speak above a whisper. And they may have problems with muscles in their face, and things come out as a mumble. But for the vast majority of people, that's not the problem. The problem is we're nervous, we're uncomfortable, we speak a little faster. A little. And we figure if we speak softly and mumble, no one will know what we're saying, and they will criticize us for making a mistake. You've already made a mistake. If you're mumbling, you're wasting people's time, and you're sending a message that you have nothing interesting to say. So the key is you've got to practice on video and really listen to it. I know you don't want to do that, but that's the only solution. You need to get to the point where you know exactly how you're coming across in terms of volume, speed, and how articulate you are. If you do that, you can eliminate the problems of mumbling and speaking too quickly. But you can't do it by just a quick fix. There's not an app to fix it. You can't stand like Wonder Woman and fix it. You. You've got to practice on video in advance until you like what you see and what you hear.
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