Monday, March 15, 2010

Confident, public speaker, Me? Give over

It has been nearly a week since I wrote in here last, and whilst not too much has taken place in my life, it certainly has been a pleasant week in so many ways. I think the two presentations which I've spoken about lots have really been good to me. I have never been a good public speaker, always getting nervous and always being rather shy. However on neither occasion did I get remotely as nervous as I have done in the past, on both occasions I felt that I spoke as clearly as I can (which isn't something that I'm known for doing), and that I conveyed the presentation well enough for those listening to understand and at least gain some sort of knowledge from it.

I said that I would sit down and reflect on these once they were both done, and whilst I really haven't gone into great detail over them with myself, I do feel that yes there was room for improvement on both occasions, I do feel that with more time on each presentation (time to give the presentation that is), I could have done better, could have provided more information. This was the first time thoguh, and whilst I'm satisfied it went well, I wouldn't sit on my laurals and suggest it was perfect. Refinement is the key here, and also possibly expansion. I presented on a limited topic, one which I know lots about, but if I want to make something more out of this I've got to be prepared to expand the field of work, I've got to be prepared to go into subjects where I'm not as strong and be able to present on those. I've got to be able to expand the time frame of the presntations and perhaps build into them a more interactive nature. This is a seed, one that has been planted, how high it grows I don't know, but it's one that I hope grows high and strong, as for once I can say I enjoyed speaking in public, I had no fear and that is something new to me.

So why did it hold no fear? Well for one I knew the people in the room, or I had met them previously, which does help, they were not all total strangers. I think that gave me a little bit of confidence, but in the past I've never really stood up and spoke even in situations where I've been in groups of people whom I knew far better than the ones I spoke in front of last week. Is it because of the topic? Maybe, I had confidence in my own ability to talk on the topic with knowledge and authority, so that was a helping factor. Another reason perhaps that needs looking into is that the preperations for this was quite comprehensive, in that others had seen the power point that I'd made and everyone was happy with that. I had gone through 6 or 7 run throughs in my flat to make sure I had the script written, again this isn't something totally new to me, just that I'd always believed I had the ability to wing things in the past. Perhaps it was all 3 things that made this go so well, and made me feel confident.

Which ever way, I'm far happier now with this than I was, I'm glad I did the presentations and can use them as a base to perhaps move forward.

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