Overcoming fear

I’ve known for a while now that I would be presenting a paper at work in front of people that had been in the industry for 20 years longer than I have. People who are subject experts being presented to by someone who’s been in the industry for just over a year. To say I was daunted and nervous was an understatement. I put off presenting, pushed out finishing the paper and even tried to just have my boss present it because of fear. Fear they would question my facts. Fear they would know a lot more than I did and call me out on mistakes. Fear that I would look stupid in front of these knowledgeable people.

 

The other day, I clicked over to fatmumslim and read her post on presenting in front of 200 people. I thought to myself that if someone who is just as nervous as I am, just as anxious as I am can present in front of 200 people for an hour, then surely I can present in front of 10 people for 10 minutes. After I read Fatmumslim’s post, I started to change my mindset and told myself I can do it and I will do it. I told myself that it doesn’t matter what the people in that meeting say – they all started somewhere too.

 

This morning was the presentation and I came to work with a sense of calm. 10am rolled around and I walked with my boss to the meeting room and was still calm. I was surprising myself! I sat down, listened to the start of the meeting and my heart beat started to race. I calmed myself down by thinking of the delicious lunch I’d be having today because by then this would be over and I would still be alive!

 

I presented, I got questions and no-one called me stupid. The feedback I got was helpful, not nasty.

 

It wasn’t so bad after all!