Nerve wreck

Guess what I'm doing this afternoon?
Teaching a 2 hour Word 2003 class to a group of employees at work.

How do I feel about it now?
Uhhhh... I wish I could run far far away.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that the employees aren't nice or that I'm not confortable with the material I will be teaching, but I've always been very uneasy with adressing large groups of people.

It all started in High School when I started having those panick attacks right *after* each one of my oral presentations. I got so bad that the school psychologist had to see me for a session of hypnosis before each oral in order to prevent the afterscene.

Last year, I was asked to teach the fundamentals of MS Office to people on my team at work and that went fine. But it was different! I realize now that the class was much less structured and I had only 3 participants who worked with me a daily basis so we kept things very casual.

This afternoon's group is constituted of 6 participants who are all expecting a professionnal level class and work in different teams that I do not interact much with. This is day 1 of a long road on which I will be giving MS Office classes every day until my maternity leave. The bar has been raised to another level and I'm so scared of facing that group. I feel exposed and vulnerable.

My heart is racing and I'm stupidly sitting at my desk with no other excuse than my poor stress management.

Wish me luck.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck! I'm sure you'll be great. And remember, if you're really in a jam, you can turn around, spill a glass of water on the floor, clutch your pregnant belly and moan really loudly.

Ann

My gratitude journal said...

Thanks Ann! Things actually went fine, as I knew they would... I didn't even need to splash water on the floor :P

Now some of the pressure is off for my 2nd class this afternoon so it shouldn't be as bad... but I just can't help the anxiety before speaking to a group.

Call it stage fright, I've never been great under a spotlight. ;)

Thanks for your warm thoughts. You were my lucky charm! :)

Post a Comment


up