When Confidence Vanishes

There is something embarrassing about having put in the hours, the research and the effort into preparing a pitch, a presentation or a piece of work, only to approach the microphone and stutter and stumble incoherently through something you know very well.

I’m not sure why, but lately I’ve been struggling with the idea of backing myself, and it’s crippling me. We all experience nerves and deal with them in different ways, but I used to be able to do this. I don’t lack the skillset. I just lack the confidence.

It’s one of those situations where, if someone else were telling me this story, I’d say: you’re probably being a bit harsh on yourself. But because it’s me, because I carry those years of self-destruction and getting into trouble behind me, and because I so desperately want to move away from that version of myself, I spiral.

Every single time.

The moment that first stutter leaves my mouth, the crash landing begins. Imposter syndrome. Overthinking. Over-engineering every sentence. Irrational thinking. In my head, it’s already game over. I’ve messed up. I’ve ruined everything. There’s no recovering from this.

Sitting here obsessively replaying it afterwards achieves absolutely nothing.

I’ve done the most sensible thing I could do and reached out to the Career Zone, who are incredible, but I still can’t quite get past the feeling of failure.

And that’s the strange part.

If I had walked in unprepared, if I’d tried to wing it, if I hadn’t put the work in, then fine. Hands up. That’s laziness.

But I didn’t.

I did the research. I prepared the pitch. I knew exactly what I wanted to say.

Which makes it all the more baffling when the words refuse to arrive at the moment they’re needed.

It’s strange, isn’t it?

How something so normal, something you used to do confidently, suddenly becomes your Achilles’ heel. Especially when there’s growth in almost every other area of life.