2 minutes… too long

2 minutes sounds like such a short amount of time. And it is. Until you have to present your work in front of your entire class, your coaches and a guest speaker. It’s made even worse when the guest speaker was brilliant and everybody else’s portfolios are extremely good.

2 minutes can feel like a life time when your as nervous as I was about this afternoon. I hate demonstrating my work, I know it’s a work in process so it’s not expected to be perfect. My portfolio is so different to everyone else’s I was worried about what the reactions would be. I knew this would be the case so over lunch I went through what I would say and took notes so I didn’t forget things, but even then it was only a minute long. I had to slow down.

Once our guest speaker was finished we were called up one at a time to present. I knew who was scheduled to present before me, so I could feel the nerves slowly building as we went through the list. When it was my turn I got up. I could already feel my face going red and I had to really concentrate on making sure I took my time to go over each element. Once that was over it was time for feedback.

Now this is when I noticed myself fidgeting and shaking. All the feedback I got was positive and the improvements that were suggested were things I knew I was capable of doing. People liked that mine was so different and that it had personality. This was the thing I was most worried about so I was relieved when it was said.

It took me a good 10 minutes to get rid of the shaking, even after I finished. But I sat down feeling better about my portfolio and with a constructive list of things to work on next week. Let’s just hope I’ll get used to presenting and if I don’t by next Friday… I guess soft skills week isn’t far away.