Presentation

Do you like to present in front of people? I know I don't. Doesn't matter how small the audience is, I just don't like it. My level of confidence is average but when I go in front to present, my self esteem goes down as low as the ground. But what is weird is that it actually depends on my mood. I'm taking Presentation Skills this semester so of course, there are a lot of presentations I have to go through. A few weeks back, I had to present an introduction of any topic I chose. I was confident in front of the class that I shocked myself. I'm always nervous while presenting. So who was that standing in front of my class, presenting like she knows everything?

I'm now preparing for a presentation tomorrow. And only God knows how I hate preparing for a presentation. Let alone present in front of people. I know this is not good for my future as presentations are crucial. I guess this is why Presentation Skills is mandatory for Uni students. They want people like me to build up their confidences. But what if we can't and what if we don't want to build up our confidence? I always get so embarrass of my English. Being a Malaysian, running from speaking Manglish is quite impossible. I can't judge my own English but I'm scared I sound like a typical Malaysian English. I think that's one of the reason why I don't like presenting. Because people will know my English level. What if I pronounce a word wrong? How if I stumbled a wrong grammar? How??? That would be so embarrassing!

Despite the fact that I hate presenting and how I get so self conscious standing and talking in front of people, I wish I am good at this. I hope in the near future, I will be able to present spontaneously. I always respect people who can just go and present without preparing for it the night before. I always have to practise in front of the mirror with my flash cards in hand and I will time myself talking to the mirrored me. After practising a thousand times in front of the mirror, my hands still shake when I present the next day.

I always wonder, how do I get that confidence to be able to talk in front of people without stuttering and shaking? Any ideas?