I was waiting at a stoplight last night, when I watched a guy walk up to the grocery store sliding doors and almost bump into them. He looked around, confused. It was just after 10pm, so the Loblaws was closed. I could tell he was embarrassed. We’ve all been there. Hard not to beat yourself up when you’ve done something silly in public. Just as he was walking away in shame, another person did basically the same thing. They started talking to each other. They laughed together. A shared embarrassment. It was nice. Mistakes can be beautiful.
Anxious Thoughts: The Ironic Mistake of Perfectionism.
Shout out to all the “A types” out there, who’ve been trained to believe that making a mistake is bad, and you should feel bad for making them. In fact, feel so bad, that you dedicate your life to avoiding the feeling of embarrassment. And what’s the furthest thing from embarrassment? Perfection. I mean, how can you feel bad for a mistake if you never make one?
Thing is, mistakes happen. And when you go into a situation expecting perfection, and you don’t get it (you say the wrong word, pause for over a second, breathe wrong), it’s even more jarring. So jarring, that you dread it even more next time.
I’m bringing this up now, because we have our Fearless Presentations class starting this Thursday, so it’s on my mind. A lot of Public Speaking classes focus on helping you get better at presenting. (Obvs.) They try to teach the perfect way of standing and talking. (Or in Zoom world, sitting and talking.) But we like to come at it from the other side. We help you practice failing presentations. And teach you how to recover when things don’t go perfectly.
Because it doesn’t matter how perfectly you learn to use your hands, voice, sentence structure, if every time you go to talk, you panic and blank because you fear everything might not go perfectly!
It’s okay to be nervous, and make mistakes, and not be a perfect, formal, presentation robot. It’s okay to be human. Go into your next presentation confident. Not because you know you’re perfect. But because you know how to handle it, and recover, when you’re not.
If you’re interested in classes, sign up today. If not, just promise to go a little easier on yourself.