I had an interesting conversation recently about fidgeting.
The person I was speaking with had watched a recording of themselves on a panel and noticed something they hadn’t been particularly conscious of at the time.
They fidget.
Not necessarily while actively answering a question, but when thinking, reflecting or listening to someone else.
Their hands are constantly doing something.
And their immediate reaction was that this was something they needed to fix.
Which raised an interesting question.
Do we always need to stop people from fidgeting?
What if the movement is actually helping?
There’s a tendency in presentation coaching to look at every unnecessary movement as something that needs to disappear.
Stop moving your hands.
Stop playing with your ring.
Stop touching your clothes.
Stand still.
And yes, distracting movement can absolutely become a problem.
If I’m watching you speak and I become more interested in what your hands are doing than what you’re saying, we’ve probably got something to work on.
But there’s another side to this.
Sometimes people move because it helps them think.
Sometimes having something in their hands makes them more comfortable.
So rather than saying, “Stop doing that,” perhaps the better question is:
Can we give that movement a purpose?
Give your hands something intentional to do
One suggestion I made was to try holding a coin.
It doesn’t have to be a coin. It could be another small object that feels natural to hold and manipulate.
The distinction is between an unconscious habit and an intentional behaviour.
Think about someone repeatedly rolling their ring around their finger.
The audience sees it, but there’s no obvious reason for it. Depending on the situation, it may simply read as nervous energy.
Now imagine that same person has a challenge coin in their hand.
Someone notices it and asks:
“What’s the coin?”
Suddenly, the thing that could have been a distracting behaviour has opened a conversation.
And depending on what that object represents, you can take that conversation somewhere useful.
I’ve seen this work on stage
I once watched a neurodiverse speaker at a large conference who had a doughnut-shaped ring in her hands while she spoke.
She rolled it around as she was presenting.
It was never mentioned.
There was no explanation for it.
It was simply part of how she showed up on stage.
And I thought that was quite powerful.
Because what would have happened if someone had told her she couldn’t have it?
Would she have become more self-conscious?
Would she have spent mental energy trying not to fidget instead of thinking about what she wanted to say?
Would removing the movement actually have made her a worse communicator?
Having something in her hands appeared to help her feel comfortable. And ultimately, that’s what mattered. She was able to communicate clearly and confidently.
The audience doesn’t need perfection
This is the bit I think we sometimes get wrong with body language.
We try to remove every behaviour that looks slightly unusual because we have an image of what a “good speaker” is supposed to look like.
But good communication isn’t about looking perfect.
It’s about whether your behaviour supports or interferes with your message.
If fidgeting is distracting your audience, then yes, work on it.
But if having something in your hands helps you think, stay present and communicate more comfortably, perhaps we don’t need to eliminate it.
We may just need to make it intentional.
Because the goal isn’t to make everybody stand, move and gesture in exactly the same way.
The goal is to help people show up in a way that allows their message to come through clearly and confidently.
And sometimes, that might mean letting them fidget.
