learning from my own mistakes

For one of my classes we were asked to create a resume and cover letter and then we did a mock interview with our professor.

Now there's something you should know about me. I am terrified when it comes to speaking to people, not just a bunch of people or particular people, anyone I haven't known my whole life really. I have never been good at expressing myself and I normally don't have anything to say, I have always been rather quiet, except for a period as a teenager but that's a different story. I'm not good at public speaking either, even if it's only to 3 people. When I'm speaking to people I don't know or kind of know I just freeze, my mind goes blank I cant even remember my name half the time, its very embarrassing and its something I've been trying to work on. When I'm at work I'm fine I become almost like a robot, hi how are you blah blah and done. Now don't get me wrong there are maybe 4 people I can actually talk freely to, I can't really explain it but when its about something I'm not really comfortable talking about its pretty much like I'm stupid and I cant speak. I know I have this problem but I didn't really know how to fix it.

Anyways I kind of got off topic, my point is I had to do a mock interview and I know I didn't do well, I don't even think I breathed through the entire thing and it was about 15-20 minutes. I had no idea what I was talking about and I was just spitting out words that I think made me sound like English was a second language to me.

So I started searching online for a bit and I think I have found some helpful tips to overcome this fright which I'm going to be trying, hopefully it helps.

1. Breathe - Its the best thing you can do. At the moment your not thinking it, but when you breathe it slows down your heart rate and sends oxygen to your brain allowing it to actually work during your stressful time. So take a deep breathe before you speak and just remember to keep breathing as you're talking.

2. Pause - Its sounds weird and its hard because 1 second feels like a lifetime when you're nervous, but allowing yourself to stop and really think about what your going to say will allow you to compile your thoughts so you actually make sense and they don't come out all scrambled.

3. Act like your talking to a friend - when its one on one its less stressful, so visualize yourself talking to a friend or your mom ( if she's not one of those judgemental moms who think they're helping but are just making things worse), it becomes easier to speak to someone you're familiar with.

4.Prepare - this was one of my problems during the mock interview, I was so stressed trying to get my resume and cover letter perfect that I didn't give myself any time to prepare. this step seems easy but it's a problem for many people. When you know your stuff it becomes easier to talk about, I'm not saying to memorize word for word what you're going to say but know it, understand it and talking about it will become natural.

5. Think positively - I know it sounds very self help bookie but if you tell yourself you can do, you will do it. It all comes down to self-esteem and how you see and feel about yourself.

I hope these help, I'm also going to try and take my own advise we'll see how it goes.