It was quite tricky to decide what to talk about because ‘challenge’ implies something incredibly difficult so nothing immediately came to my mind then I suddenly remembered having to do a presentation at work, which for some might not seem too tricky, but for me tho, the thought of it was a nightmare so I’ve decided to talk about that particular time.

I can’t remember precisely when it was but it was a couple of years back when I was working in a different role to my current one. In that job, I was responsible for the admin mainly and my team leader was in charge of any presentations. Unfortunately though, she had a nasty accident which meant she was off work for a couple of weeks and she was supposed to give a presentation to some clients. She had prepared most of it, it only needed a few tweaks, which I happily did, but then the big boss asked me if I could deliver it.

My immediate reaction was no, absolutely not. I was not comfortable with giving presentations. He said it was fine but asked if I could run through the presentation with him. Whilst I was doing it, I realized that I did know the content inside out because I had written it so at the end when he asked ‘Are you sure you can’t do it?’ I gave in and said ok,

The night before the big day, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking ‘have I bitten off more than I can chew’? I nearly phoned in sick, but I had agreed to it and I hate letting people down. There were a few technical issues in the first minute with the PowerPoint, but once I got going it all went smoothly and the big boss kept giving me the thumbs up to encourage me. In my current job, I have done quite a few presentations and I’m glad I did that first one to get over my fear of public speaking.