It ended up being a crowd of about 30-40 people - smaller than initially expected although I don't think an extra 20 people would have made a difference in the experience for me. I wasn't really nervous until the wee hours of the morning when a friend woke me up with a text at 4 a.m. I instantly started mulling over the delivery of the presentation, but quickly managed to squish the anxiety building in my chest. I woke up again at 5:30. More anxiety, but again managed to fall back asleep, until my alarm went off at 7 a.m.
I'm not sure what I was worried about. Perhaps it wasn't reviewing my presentation enough before hand. Maybe it was just the unknown. Either way, once I was awake, dressed and off to the conference the nerves just simmered slightly in the background. I had a few spikes over the course of the morning, but things settled down nicely. Eventually it was my turn to talk and I got up there and did my thing.
Immediately after I started criticizing myself in my head. I talked to fast, I wasn't interesting, I relied on my notes too much. People congratulated me on a job well done. I was skeptical. They were just being nice.
Then I stopped myself. Come on Lauren - you just did something that 10 years ago would have been impossible for you. On top of that, you were asked to speak - you weren't creating your own soapbox. I reminded myself that when we stop ourselves from living in the moment and being proud of all the big steps we take, dwelling instead on the little stumbles we make, we are only hurting ourselves. Was I perfect? No. But did I bring value? Yes. And more importantly did I do something that will make me a different and better person tomorrow? Absolutely.
We need to do a better job of celebrating the chances we take, and our brave moments, instead of trying to focus on our imperfections or worse, downplaying our success. Success isn't about perfection - its about doing the best job you can do and liking who you are when you do it.
So, in summary, yay me.
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