I'm currently in the third to last week, and this presentation is coming up FAST. My group and I have been working for weeks on setting up the PowerPoint and figuring out what we wanted to speak about, and today was our first ever practice presentation in front of our mentors. Unfortunately, I had meetings all morning up until the presentation so I had no time to meet up with my group to prepare. Meanwhile, my group was frantically trying to finish up the outline enough so that it would be just presentable. So basically I entered this presentation a bit frazzled and also not knowing what changes my group members had made to the project.
The conference room we scheduled to meet in couldn't support our PowerPoint so we ended up having to verbally explain it, which was not ideal. There were a ton of awkward pauses because we hadn't determined who would speak about certain topics yet, we forgot to mention a good portion of our ideas, and I certainly stumbled over my words quite a few times. As we were presenting, we realized that the progressive structure we chose for the talking points was super repetitive, yet couldn't do anything about it mid-presenting. In addition, there was a typo in the outline which threw me a curveball when I had to speak to that section.We were a bit of a hot mess to say in the least. I am aware that the presentation could've gone much worse, but I still had higher expectations.
After we finished presenting, our mentors gave us constructive criticism, which was beyond helpful. Although I would've liked to have done better as a group and personally, I was really grateful that we did mess up. Because we weren't completely prepared, we were able to gain insight on how to make ourselves better and how to fine-tune our project to be better for the final presentation. I'm also glad that I was really nervous and that my group wasn't on the ball for this presentation because that made me realize that it can only get better from here. That was probably the worst case scenario, and it still wasn't even horrible in the scope of things.
Reflecting on failure as a whole, it's a rough feeling. Whenever I fail at something, I often feel embarrassed, like other people are judging me or disappointed. In reality, that is most often far from the truth, and instead I am usually the only one judging myself. When I fail, I let myself feel the emotions that come naturally for a little bit, but then I think about what happened, where I went wrong, and how I can do better next time. Failure should be a motivating force rather than a suppressing one.
Sometimes I can be a little risk-adverse because I don't want to fail. I find that it helps to think of the most realistic worst case scenario that could happen and that's usually not even that bad. As long as you don't die, you can get through it! If you do a presentation and clam up, it's not the end of the world! Try again next time. Acknowledge your weaknesses and keep practicing them until they become your strengths. Once you feel comfortable with something, you won't be worried about failing. It's ok to trust yourself. More often than not, you can handle things thrown your way.
I believe that this course has definitely helped me shape my mindset of what failure is. In the beginning of the course, I felt weird writing blog posts that would be public for the world to see and I didn't feel comfortable interviewing people. I thought that people wouldn't be receptive. I've learned that the worst case scenario is never that bad and people are much more accepting than you may think. It's ok to put yourself out there. The same concept applies when it comes to failing because it makes you feel vulnerable, but in the end you can just turn that vulnerability into a strength.
Although I can be uncomfortable with risk depending on the circumstances, I've never let it stop me from pursuing what I want. I always make sure that my mind stays focused on the long-term goal rather than the fear of the moment. It really helps to think about the future. If I have to do a presentation, I'll usually think about how happy I'll feel once it's done and off of my chest. Taking what I've learned about failure from this course, I will definitely continue taking risks no matter how intimidating they may seem.
Keep on failing!
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