I have only two phobias in life, one is walking under train bridges and the second is presentations. So to my horror, when I walked in on Wednesday, I found we had a 2-3 minute mini-presentation to complete, although I did not expect the deadline to be as soon as 2pm the same day.
I have never liked doing presentations so hearing that we had one started of my primary reaction of panic. In the past presentations have always ended up with me being really nervous. This is due to the fact that I have never really planned for one properly or rehearsed them.
The presentation given was on the colour blue so in order to do the presentation I needed to research. That was the easy part... I think the initial panic had faded by then partly because I had tried to forget about the fact that a presentation was closing.
Research and presentation prepared I went off to do my presentation and to my delight there was only Steve and Diane to watch it. Still this did not stop the nerves and as soon as I walked through the door my heart rate doubled. My main aim for this presentation was not to deliver it too quick because when I panic I do tend to speed up when talking.
During the presentation I felt very nervous and I felt my words wavering and my voice shaky. What surprised me the most is I managed to get the presentation bang on 3 minutes. What surprised me even more was the fact that I had delivered, according to Diane, an excellent presentation. Even Steve said it was a good presentation and if I was nervous I definitely didn't show it. Well I couldn't have felt happier knowing that a) it was over and b) it was a good presentation, which did throw me so much that I completely forgot about my handout.
This has shown me that although I may be nervous my presentation skills have improved more than I thought they would have. The main thing that I need to work on is the preparation of the presentation and how to handle my nervers. In future presentations I am going to need rehearse more, doing this will calm me down.
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3 comments:
I think from doing this exercise and reading peoples blogs everyone seemed to have done this type of thing before and kept their cool. The ones who I thought would sail through the presentation and the ones who I thought may have struggled seem to be quite the opposite to what I predicted.
I'm not saying I didn't think you would do well, this comment is aimed at everybody, it's just that yours was the blog I was reading when I realised this.
Apparenty we are walking under train bridges next week, which I'm okay with.
Thanks for the comment I know what you mean, I thought I would do terrible and I have done this kind of thing before.
Chris, I thought your presentation was excellent, I was very impressed. It was very well structured and presented with a clear and professional delivery.
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