Brainstorming

Specific story?

            I am a marine affairs major and if anyone doesn’t know we have to do an internship. I did my internship last year with a local company that was very up and coming. This resulted in getting paid late, very “day by day” operations, and disorganization. I was supposed to be building my professionalism in an environment that was also building its professionalism.

• Even though they weren’t typical experiences, I was able to recognize how I could do better
• I have always struggled with my professional self because of my anxiety
• I overthink my actions
• Speaking isn’t good
• I look unprofessional/don’t know what I’m doing
  • Flustered
  • Stumble over words
  • Forget absolutely everything in my brain
• I let professions consume me/my life because of my unsureness
  • Overthinking leads to many mistakes and an unprofessional appearance
    • Did I do this right today?

Body:

Work on my confidence

• Public speaking/verbal skills
  • Take a course
  • Practice makes perfect
  • Being sure of my actions
• Coping mechanisms?
• Cognitive reframing
  • Positivity

Interpersonal skills

Professional writing skills

• Emails
  • Proposals

Setting boundaries

• Will let me really focus on my profession when I need to, not all the time
• Allow me to be able to have “fresh eyes” and

Initiation

• Reaching out and convincing others I am qualified  
• Sharing my ideas, concerns, and criticism

Conclusion:

• Poor experiences are still teaching experiences
• Being professional really stems from having confidence in yourself
• Practice makes perfect

Revised Outline

I have always struggled with very bad anxiety. So bad that I get physically ill at the thought of doing anything new or uncomfortable. My anxiety gets the best of me in the professional world because I overthink, get flustered, and sometimes just forget everything that has ever been in my brain. Unfortunately, this reflects poorly upon me, making me seem not confident in what I’m doing. Confidence is one of the biggest things that I have always struggled with due to my anxiety. As we all probably know, lacking confidence affects more than just not wearing the shirt you want to wear. It can affect public speaking and verbal skills in general, it takes away opportunities, and lacking confidence can make you appear as anything but professional.

Working on confidence

I’ve been in talk therapy for quite some time now to help with my anxiety. Something that I was taught, and I have found to be beneficial is something called “cognitive reframing”. This process is used to almost trick your brain into viewing or thinking of things differently. You are supposed to challenge your own thoughts, like “why can I not do this?” or “what is stopping me from accomplishing this?”. I have found this helps a lot with interviews, public speaking, and even just learning new tasks that you aren’t able to be guided through.

            Another way to work on confidence in a professional setting is to make yourself uncomfortable and put yourself in those situations that make you uncomfortable. Before I worked in the food industry, talking on the phone was my absolute biggest fear. But being forced into that uncomfortable situation, even though it felt like I was going to die, is why I don’t spend twenty-five-minute preparing to make a phone call, I only spend about five to ten. Experience and practice one of the best ways to become confident and comfortable doing a task in the future.

Setting boundaries

      I get so anxious about work, that I take it home with me. I constantly ask myself, “did I get this right today?”. I never want anyone to be disappointed or upset with me so I am constantly thinking about how I can be better. This burns me out so quickly because it’s literally like working twenty-four seven. This leads me into my next point of being your best professional self is being able to not be professional sometimes, when appropriate of course. Setting boundaries for when you are out of work is essential to avoid that burn out. This will allow you to be more focused and in a better professional mindset.

A mistake I made early on in my professional career was making myself available all the time for my employer. This resulted in me working sixty-hour weeks

• Put distance between you and your employer
• No work talks out of work

Initiation

• Self-advocacy
  • Internship
    • Pay, “flying by the seat of my pants”
    • Growing as a professional
• Putting yourself out there
• Advocating for yourself through building confidence
• I feel more comfortable applying to jobs, “I am enough”

Conclusion:

            Summary of main points

• Buzz words

            How these are going to benefit the future

• Poor experiences are still teaching experiences
• Being professional really stems from having confidence in yourself
• Practice makes perfect
• Advocating for yourself in a professional environment is important

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Dry-run Video

https://youtu.be/apaq726MAXg

My Best Advice

            In my opinion the best peer review I gave was to Colby when he said he was going to get rid of a part of his speech. In that part he was discussing something to the effect of how your academic self helps shape you on other levels. I think this really shows the importance of school and an education beyond just academics. Being a better version of your academic self will reflect on other parts of your life because it’s teaching general skills that we will use for the rest of our lives. I think that part is really important to include because some people may believe that education is a waste of time. But you are actually shaping yourself to be able to navigate the world. In my opinion structure and content feedback is some of the most important. Even though body language, visuals, or whatever else isn’t very strong, at least the content of the speech is meaningful and hopefully will stick.

            A piece of feedback that I was offered that was helpful was I was using too many personal experiences that it was almost hard to relate to. Instead of using specific experiences, broad experiences and details may be easier to relate to. Personal experiences are important for the audience to engage and understand, but also can be overwhelming and not relatable if you’re just discussing your experiences and your details. I think this advice helped a lot because taking away some of those random points will allow me to have some more organization. It’ll make my speech move smoother and be easier to comprehend. I was able to determine on three different aspects, two being a single experience and the other being something I deal with daily.

Final Outline

I have struggled with severe anxiety for as long as I can remember. It gets so bad that I become physically ill at the thought of new, unfamiliar situations like interviews, first day of classes or work, or simply learning a new task. In the professional world, my anxiety gets the best of me, causing me to overthink, get flustered, and sometimes forget everything that has ever been in my brain. Completely blank.

• My anxiety makes me look ba, reflects poorly to strangers, making me seem insecure in what I’m doing.
• Confidence is one of the things I have struggled with most because of my anxiety.
• Affects public speaking and verbal skills in general. It takes away opportunities.
• Not looking professional to a potential employer.

To help me with my anxiety, I have been in talk therapy on and off for about three years now

• “Cognitive reframing.”: tricking your brain into viewing or thinking about things differently.
• Why can I not do this?” or “what is stopping me from accomplishing this?”
• Before convincing someone else that you can do something, you must first convince yourself that you are capable.
• Intentionally make yourself uncomfortable by putting yourself in unfamiliar situations.
• Food industry, talking on the phone was my absolute biggest fear.
• Even though it felt like I was going to die when I picked up the phone, these experiences are why I do not spend twenty-five minutes preparing to make a phone call anymore – I only spend about five to ten.
• Experience and practice are some of the best ways to become confident and comfortable doing a task in the future.

I take work home with me at the end of the day. I ask myself, “did I get this right today?”

• I never want anyone to feel disappointed or upset with me so I am constantly considering how I can be better.
• Setting boundaries for when you are out of work is essential to avoid that feeling of burnout. This will allow you to be more focused and in a better professional mindset when you are working.
• Made myself available all the time to my employer.
• Sixty-hour work weeks and being consumed by work when doing things that were supposed to give me joy.
• If I said no to being asked to cover a shift, it would ruin my entire day because all I would think about is me declining someone’s request.
• I began resenting and dreading work. I would be in a bad mood when I was there, which is not exactly professional.
• Distancing yourself from your work will allow you to be your best professional self.
• Something I like to do whenever possible is take a shower when I get home, almost like I’m metaphorically washing work away for the day. This way, after my shower I will be able to relax and unwind and do things I enjoy
• As a marine affairs major, there is an internship requirement embedded in the curriculum for me to graduate.
• I did my internship last year with a small, up-and-coming local company. I learned a lot about being professional, but not in a “this is what you should do” kind of way. It was more of a “this is what you shouldn’t do.”
• Operations ran on a day-by-day basis without much plan or organization. Sometimes, orders would go out late because we were not organized. We would hop around to different tasks rather than complete one task before starting another, which was inefficient. I would even get paid late and with very little communication if any at all. The stories go on.
• To be honest, this experience felt like the biggest waste of time. Now, looking back, it has been the most helpful to me. So, my last piece of advice as to how you can be a better version of your professional self is to use your experiences.
• Good or bad, they are all opportunities for us to learn and grow.
• I learned that it is not rude or outspoken to advocate for myself.
• Built my confidence; had little to no guidance throughout operations, so I had to trust myself and figure things out on my own.

As we all enter the professional world, whether that be next year or in the next ten years from now, it is important to develop a professional persona. If we can teach ourselves confidence, self-advocacy, and the importance of learning from every opportunity, we can enter the professional world with relevant experience.

Reflection After Peer Review

After going over my speech briefly during class I was able to take the feedback and recognize that I needed some more organization and structure. I had solid thoughts, but they were kind of all over the place. There needs to be more of a flow and connecting or transition points to make it sound smoother. If I were to restructure it so that each point leads into the next, it will make more sense and it’ll be easier to remember. This will also help with my presentation of the speech itself because I will be able to work off connecting points rather than reading from a piece of paper. I’ll be able to make better eye contact and have more interaction with the audience. This will also allow me to add more emotion and enthusiasm behind my delivery.
Another piece of feedback I got was that I was speaking too fast, and I was using words like “um”, “uh”, “like”, and “stuff like that”. Personally, I get distracted from excessive use of these words. If I am to practice more it will reduce these “spacers” making my points clearer and easier to grasp. Even though it is a hard thing to do, really grounding yourself and being self-aware I feel like is another way to help this problem. Being present for my speech is something I’m really going to try and be aware of.

Reflection as a Whole

Speeches and presentations have always been things that I dread because it isn’t one of my strong suits. So, I really appreciated the process that we took while writing this speech because it warmed me up to the idea rather than jumping right into it. Being able to take each step together and really use each other as resources I think benefitted my speech greatly. I have a habit of just writing something, looking it over myself, and then delivering it. Being able to have someone else look over it, like Lyle, and having others listen to it, like our small groups was beneficial and got me used to the idea of presenting it. Aside from gaining skills like structuring a speech and public speaking skills, we were also able to work on our feedback skills. From now on I’m going to find another set of eyes and ears to help do trial runs and give me feedback. I also think being on the other end more often, like being the one giving the feedback is also helpful and I learned that from this assignment as well. Recognizing other’s weaknesses and seeing it from the outside will now help me recognize areas I need to work on personally as well.