Ever since I could remember, I had a fear of public speaking. Throughout the school years, I hated reading out loud in class. If the teacher was making every student read a paragraph I used to try to calculate what paragraph I would have to read if the teacher was going in some type of order. The teachers who singled out students randomly were the absolute worst because it didn’t give me enough time to practice what I would have to read out loud. In elementary school, being shy ALWAYS affected my participation grade.
There came a time where my mom was sick of getting an almost perfect report card from me because my participation grade every marking period was horrible. One day she said enough is enough and forced me out of my comfort zone.
When I was younger, I used to love the cotton candy frappuccino and the strawberry frappuccino from Starbucks. Every Saturday, when we would go to Queens to visit family, my aunt would always buy my sisters and I a frappuccino for the long car drive before heading out. One day, I was denied my frappuccino. My mom told me that if I didn’t learn to ask for things myself and to speak up, I was no longer getting anything. So, if I wanted that frappuccino, I was going to have to order it myself.
Being the shy person that I was, I would whisper to the person at register and they obviously never understood what I said. I had to learn to speak up if I wanted my mom to buy me things. Not only did I have to order my own drink at Starbucks, but my food as well if we ever went out to restaurants.
By learning to talk to strangers, I gained confidence in myself and that made it easier for me to talk in front of my peers at school. However, talking in front of strangers is completely different than talking in front of your peers. Kids are mean and often judge you for the most irrelevant things. Because my peers were so mean, I never gained enough confidence in myself to be able to speak in front of the class without panicking.
Confidence is not something you magically get in one day. It takes time to built it up and despite my mom’s best efforts to help me, she did not get immediate results by forcing me to speak to strangers. However, she did give me the push I needed to start to build my confidence back up.