How Can I Help Myself From Self Torture?

Just keep this thought!! Exactly !! I am what I am! Accept yourself!

My entire day goes in zoom calls, where I present ideas from the deep knowledge I have - I talk to world famous professors and Padmabhushan awardees, I speak with CEOs and marketing heads and directors and teachers and I also speak with 5-18 year olds students and their parents!!

Everything goes fine, but the minute I am in a physical presentation - I tell them - whoever it is - I will either speak or I will stand - I feel nervous and my legs feel wobbly!

They immediately arrange a chair for any presentation - thats it! I always sit and present or talk!

They respect and want to use my knowledge, ideas and wisdom, they are not there to make fun of my wobbly legs

I am what I am!

Keep smiling
HR

 

Superb. Well said. When i could speak over phone to my boss as if am his boss, but in person i used to tremble as if red ants have entered my trousers!

 

Firstly it is Beautiful thread. Kudos to OP.
Discussions from far and wide in a huge bandwidth lively & pragmatic .
Optimism vs pessimism is the high light of the story here. Gentle subtle lambast i sense down the line.
A leader is invariably provided an elevated chair in the oval hall to enhanced view of audience or and adversaries but also to boost his confidence and courage to face the unruly among audience and deal upfront with subtle sarcasms and tricky questions triggered of course by internal politics. Do you OP - have one?
This is happening in all realms. Even late Churchill and nearer home Late Nehru, Miss World & Aish late Jayalalithaa in TV interviews - foreign & local (Indian) had to face it. Only scale is different .

To @Thoughtful - too good and healing responses and subtle too.
Employees and executives in Half of the world technologies’ related team work for other half of the world face this dilemma but they manage chewing the cud in mental agony.

@lakshmi888 i am with you too.

Ignore, humourise, do tit for tat, counter-questioning are seemingly pragmatic remedies.

Regards to All participants here & to OP.
God Bless.

 

retirement is about living life in peace and not having emotional distress because some CTO has asked people to finish work in unrealistic deadlines and then blame everyone down the chain, if anything goes wrong and this is the case in all big companies and I have worked in many many big companies and promotion is given to biggest boot lickers, who act like slaves to VP or CTO in all these big companies.

many Desi CTOs & VPs attend critical late night software deployments and give useless unrealistic orders and i can hear people's babies crying in the background ..is this the kind of life to look forward to in 40s , 50s or 60s...what about emotional peace ?

 

I tend to agree with your lament. Looking forward to response or reaction from brother/son @Thoughtful .

 

Good post, OP. Almost everyone feels and thinks like you. I had once read that after death, speaking in public is the next thing that people generally are scared of. Best part is you have identified and acknowledged what exactly is the issue. Step 1 towards the mission is accomplished.

Don't force yourself to change instantly as it may add stress to your situation. Choose a positive thought and keep repeating it to yourself, like @hrastro has mentioned in her post above. Slowly and steadily you will overcome this. Believe that you can manifest it by aligning your thoughts in the right direction. And we here are your biggest cheerleaders!

 

Dear OP

I was like you a few years, to be precise a decade back when I started as a junior manager.

I later realized that I wasn't confident enough before the experienced and technically sound fellow senior staff members back then. This has made me go silent introvert at the work place, especially during meetings and workshops where I was expected to share my opinion and challenges like everyone else.

This had a serious blow in my career, where the management thought I was not competent enough to carry the responsibilities of the post. Despite of working efficient and producing better results than others in the team, I was not visible to the management due to this introvert & silent nature of mine. This has post a threat to my position when staff recession was at its peek.

That's when I realized the importance of opening up, and coming out of my comfort zone.

At first, it felt like everyone around me was watching me as if they were judges of a reality show. So, I would be trembling, and stammering while I speak.
But later realized, no one except the ones who wants the details would care what or how I speak, and have no business on my speech skills. Even if they care, there will be no perfect speakers in the lot, including them.
To make my understanding clear, I started observing others when they presented/spoke in the forums and identified a lot of mistakes, insufficiencies etc.... yet, they spoke confidently and no one interrupted.
This is when I understood that my fear was more of imaginary than real.

This gave me some confidence to speak up before those senior managers, who are from different parts of the world.
This time, I spoke, but heard comments, criticism etc for what I spoke. In fact, if I recall those days, those comments were not criticisms, but just advises to improve my skills. But the inferior me took them seriously to heart, and like you I too would punish myself for the whole day for using a wrong word or a wrong data just because someone commented on that. This has further killed my confidence.

This battle was real, and in my circle I did not know any source that could professionally help me. I had two choice back then 1) to leave the job or accept a demotion to be a general staff to be comfortable 2) to challenge myself and my limitations to grow further.
I chose the latter and started learning technical skills to be confident before others.

One fine day, I was thrown in to a workshop where I was expected to present the achievements in a Asia Pacific workshop before high profiled people around the world. But this time, I rehearsed it a million times, was very sure of my dressing and conduct, and was 100% confident of the data I presented. I prepared to answer a lot of questions that may come after the presentation, and was fully ready.

I also learned to control stress by pressing some pressure points in my body, doing breathing exercise, and more importantly praying and staying positive.
That day, I told myself..... This is my work, and it is just a part of my life. If it didn't work, let it me. It is not the end of the world.
Even Jesus and lord Buddha could not escape criticism. So, as a human, I am bound to face criticism for whatever I do.
I just told myself that I have to prove to anyone, but to me. I must already feel superior to many for having this stage which others don' have. I have done all I could to to utilize this stage, the rest is in God's hands.

This thought freed me from the tension, and I was able to carry myself (of course with some the initial trembling ) so well.
Yes, there we questions that I could not answer, some mistakes or whatsoever.
That's when I started focusing on the positives, and not the negatives.
Yes, there were people who clapped, there were people who appreciated, there were a lot of positive feedback. Yes, it gave me the confidence that I can pull off this, and many more.

It's been more than a decade since I started, and the journey still continous. Now a days, people tell me that I am overconfident, has no stage fear and speak up easily. But remember, it was not my nature, and it was only my hard work.

Not just you, me and many others have faced this inner battle at some or the other times. You just need to come out of your comfort zone to be successful in life.

 

Dear OP,

You need to work on your self-esteem and self-confidence. It is not what others think about you that bothers you but your thoughts that what others may think about you that makes you worry so much. You need to work to build a strong impression about you in your subconscious mind. The work environment is going to be challenging and competitive but when you feel good about yourself, your beating yourself will change. Emotions aside, take simple notes when you are alone about all the positives you possess and read it aloud. It is a simple way to reinforce your self-confidence.

I have worked in India until 1995 and migrated to the US when I was 42 years old as an executive at a corporate level. Despite outstanding performance in India that resulted in my migration to work in the corporate headquarters, I had to start with zero as the work environment, culture, language, etc. are different. I had to encounter a major challenge including my way of writing, speaking and communicating with colleagues. On top of it, I was reporting to a CEO who used foul language liberally and publicly humiliated all the executives, in general. All our colleauges supported each other and worked together to perform well and uplift the company. The company went public and grew from $27 million to $330 million in 6 years. All of us focused on the rich experience we were gaining as opposed to humiliation from the CEO.

Now, many of us left the company to become successful in our field because of that rich experience. The days are not far off for you to be shining so well. Be patient and I am sure you would come out of this fear inside if you try hard. Try visualization techniques at home. I learned public speaking only by practicing it again and again at home. I have addressed a gathering of 100 sales executives in one meeting and I was nervous with stage fear the first time. But when I opened up the talk with a great sense of humor, the audience listened and paid attention to what I was sharing.

Many of us (from an ordinary background) climbed the heights one step at a time with same fears you are encountering now. It takes time but you would definitely succeed in climbing.

Good luck!

 

It transport my mind to the day when i was compulsorily deliver a speech as a management trainee; i was young then and wet behind my ears. A read of narration* here in link would probably help readers with knack & trick.
* Disintegration On National Integration Desideratum