“Oh dear God. It’s happening, you’re a grown up.” These were literally the words I whispered to myself in the mirror the day before my very first professional event. So what about you? It’s now time for you to prepare for your very first professional event. Whether it’s a conference, speech or presentation, the stages you go through can feel endless. So here’s five stages as told by the best employee of our favorite paper company Dunder Mifflin, Dwight Schrute. (Dunder Mifflin: “The People Person Paper People”)
Stage One – Clothing…Business casual? What?
This all depends on how “stylish” you are. Do you have that type of closet where you can throw things together and look fab? Lack of time and funds makes a professional wardrobe non-existent. If you don’t have the wardrobe of champions, it’s time to haul ass to your nearest (cheapest) store. I’d recommend thrift stores, but that can take forever. Collegiettes, say it with me: “I admit to procrastinating, but I’m still about to look fab.” Feel better? Mr. Schrute pulls it together when it comes to his professional attire. He sports a lovely short-sleeved mustard colored collared shirt most times and those glasses are… life changing.
Stage Two – Fear; better known as “Oh dear God… It’s the end.” or “Crisis-last-minute-mode”
This is such an obvious feeling to experience when preparing for your very first professional event. You want to do well. Hopefully you have everything set up weeks ahead of time. If not, you must not fret. It happens, but now you’re in crisis mode. This is when you begin regretting every single night of the past month that you’ve knocked out in front of Netflix while cuddling your cat. This regret becomes thick and you pray to whatever higher power to make it through this situation. Are you overreacting? Probably not, because this is really important to you and you deserve to do well. So, get to Starbucks and get your favorite drink, because you’re about to pull a wonderfully painful all-nighter.
Stage Three – Please, Please, Please …Don’t say anything weird.
You’re setting up, they’re watching you, you’ve practiced. You got this. All of a sudden your mind goes blank and you start having a hard time breathing. It’s getting real. The biggest mistake young professionals make is going off message. People easily tend to either feel one of two extremes; they can be too tense or too comfortable. When you’re too tense the viewers will more than likely lose interest in what you have to say. You’ll come across as boring or even worse, like you’re about to throw up. The opposite is just as bad, if not worse. If you are too comfortable during a presentation the chances of you going off message is high. You’ll go on tangents, it can get weird, you may get personal accidentally, so much can happen. Being too comfortable risks the chance of you appearing unprofessional. You need to find a healthy balance; preferably prior to the day you present.
Stage Four – Oh, Wait. You might be getting hype… If not, (discretely) fake it.
Hopefully you’re starting to get a little excited. If you’re not totally prepared this is when you dig deep inside your soul and come up with the best bullet points of whatever you can think of pertaining to your topic and elaborate greatly. Take a pointer out of Dwight’s book. He’s a man who puts such intense emotion behind everything he does. Professional presentations require focus, courage, knowledge of the subject and somewhat of an intensity when you share the information with others. You need to look as interested as you can without appearing “fake.” A decent balance is required.
Stage Five – This will be great! Success happens when you take risks, right?
You’ll usually hit this stage around 15 minutes prior to the presentation. It’s a glorious feeling when you realize that you can actually conquer what’s about to happen. You realize your brilliance and it hits you; the pre-presentation adrenaline. So, from Dwight Schrute to you, GOOD LUCK you lovely, young professional. You will do great things. You’re fabulous.