A Situation Paints A Thousand Nerves

I knew it. I knew it was going to come. I’m not the kind of person to cower in the face of confrontation, and I was positively looking forward to the day that I got to do a presentation. I love new challenges, and as soon as Steve announced that we would indeed be doing a presentation and it would be today, the wry, cheeky smile couldn’t be hidden on my face. When Steve then asked if there was one person willing to work by themselves I couldn’t help pushing the challenge a bit further and sticking my hand up. The challenge was on, and I set to work.

It was time. I still didn’t feel nervous, I’d be quietly rehearsing for about 40 minutes prior and I just tried to relax for a while down in the refectory. I began my walk up the stairs, and I still felt fine. I was that usual, up-for-anything Craig. I walked in the room, said a nonchalant “Hi” while I got my USB pen, which made Diane wonder if I was actually doing my presentation next. She commented on the fact that I sounded so calm. I told her that inside my body the feeling was extremely different. And I most definitely wasn’t lying. I stuck in my USB pen into the PC, started up my presentation and something changed.

I suddenly felt choked by nervousness. I remembered little about what happened in the presentation, apart from the feedback. Both said I did fine apart from a bit of shuffling. Steve asked me how I did, and I shook my head. I thought I’d done badly. But where did that nervousness come from?

I’m never usually nervous during presentations, and I tend to be extremely relaxed when talking to strangers and other people. I go through all the niceties, the hand shaking and the how-are-yous, but the fact that I knew Steve and Diane wasn’t the problem either, because as soon as the presentation ended I was still stood at the front and suddenly felt completely relaxed and natural. In a way, I believe it was the content I was presenting. I felt nervous that if I got a question posed to me, I didn’t know enough about the area to be able to effectively answer such a question. But there was something else there.

After talks with Steve later in the day on Thursday I figured out that it was the fact that I had a reputation to live up to. Because I’m always naturally confident and quite confrontational, I felt that if I didn’t show this in the presentation that Steve would in some way think less of me. Slightly silly I know, but in pressure situations you have very little time to think rationally. If the audience was full of strangers I would have been fine, but it was the fact that I knew the people sat there, and I knew that they knew what I was like.

I honestly don’t think that there would have been much I would have done differently if I was to do this again. I think I needed to be a bit more of myself, instead of treating this as a different situation. Usually I treat all situations the same, but this time I believe I hyped it up too much in my head. I must try and make sure I keep myself calm and considered, and just be myself. But these things will only get better with more practice which is something I am looking forward to already.

This has been the first challenge on the course that I feel there is major improvement for myself, which gives me something to work on for next time. It’s been a more than interesting challenge, and once again revealed a lot of food for thought about myself that I’ve never seen before.

Next.