Don't Sweat It

I might have told you a few days or even weeks ago about my presentation that I had to do one for this one particular class. Well, after a few days of it being delayed (due to time constraints in class and my last name almost being on the bottom of the list), today was the day for me to go.

At first, I was ok with it because I had set up, practiced, and went over my presentation a couple of times. Also, my brother told me that he was so sick of hearing my presentation that even he could say the whole thing by heart, so I figured that I was ready.

But while I was waiting to go in the library, I began to worry a little bit and feel a bit like doubting myself. I wondered could I do this? Will everything go well? How should I present: should I look at the PowerPoint, my notes, or at the people in my class?

And so I basically spent my times listening to music, playing games on my ipod, and writing a to-do-list.I went to class early to make sure the sound and everything would be able to work on the projector in class.

While I was waiting I was speaking to another classmate of mine, whom I worked together on a group project for the same class. And he is generally an easy-going person with a nice sense of humor, so the fact that he wanted to go first and remained so calm and easy made me feel better. It helped me understand that I was freaking out over nothing and even more that I made myself feel insecure with the little doubts that sometimes go through my mind.Somehow I began to understand that I could do this, that I could do the presentation well, and that I was prepared.

All I needed was to keep my confidence,keep it together, and try my best.

There was a person who went before me, and then it was my turn. I felt a bit nervous as my heart was kind of pounding, but I got up, put my USB into the computer, opened up my PowerPoint and situated myself near the stand the class has.

Once the professor sat down, I pressed start to the clock he provided us to count down from seven minutes.

And I went through the presentation as I had when I rehearsed it, and at times I changed it up from my routine because as my brother suggested that a presentation shouldn't be all about memorizing, it should be about keeping the audience interested (to make it not so painful for them to sit through it) and to find the best/easiest way for people to understand what you are trying to present. Also, it helps to add video clips or some pictures to give yourself a break too. You don't simply have to rely on bullet points or your notes, it is best to have a variety of each.

After my 2nd video, I looked at the alarm clock and saw that I only had about 40 seconds left and still needed 3 more slides to go through. So, I quickly went through the first slide, and then I tried to explained as fast as I could about the 2nd slide, but I saw the clock ticking down and I was like ok, so I don't have enough time, but it's ok because my last slide was coming up and it was the conclusion. So the clock went from 3...2...1 and then beep beep beep.

And I didn't explain my conclusion part yet, but I figured that since it was there and that it was last slide it was ok and self-explanatory. I actually was surprised as to how fast the time passed and that I might have actually had fun?

Seriously I felt as if it was kind of fun and enjoyable even because it was interesting to express what I researched and prepared for, explain it to the audience, and engage them into it. It was also nice to hear their reaction to my videos.

So, I guess you could say that it went well. I felt as if I did really well and I was pretty happy.

The moral of the story I guess is to face your fears and insecurities because you come to realize that you had nothing to worry about in the first place, that you could do it, and learn how to do better next time if you make some mistakes the first time.

In fact, the best thing of facing your fears is that you can learn how to improve. Also, you feel better when choosing to face them. When you choose to run and hide instead, I feel very bad about myself and I don't need to experience that kind of feeling when there are so many more worse things in the world and life is so short.

So, I guess the story here is to find that courage to try and to learn from the mistakes you make. Being life, nothing is really perfect and you can't say that you will never make any mistakes in life, the important thing is to get back up when you do and try again. Why not? You only do have one life to live, let's not waste it to not try to improve what we need to.

It was a very good feeling when it was over and I felt so good and proud of myself, you should too give yourself a chance. Don't give up on yourself.

I and many of you I'm sure had done presentations before, so take from those experiences and learn to improve it. Have faith and confidence that you did it before and don't let your fears control you. If you mess up, at least you tried, and guess what now it's over and you can definitely know what you should improve next time. If you did well, great, now you can feel good, relax, and get more experience from it, so you can become even better.

Also, that bit about the audience, don't sweat it, your not the only person in the whole class who has to do a presentation and everyone knows that, so don't worry about what those people think. Chances are those that think badly of you are the ones who are not your friends and don't deserve to be, so why do you care about what they think, when they only treat you so badly?

The person that should matter the most to you are your loved ones, friends, family, and you---yourself---your own individuality and your ability to be happy in life.