A LITTLE ABOUT ME

I appreciate some people might want to know who I am before they leave me their contact details. And that’s fair enough. So here I proudly present to you: Little Ripple’s origin story. If the wall of text scares you: the oneliner summary can also be found on my introduction page. I at least skipped my birth and infant years, to save you some time. Happy reading!

Please don’t make me do a presentation

I grew up with what you could mildly put as “dented” self-esteem. I had tons of insecurities, and they were most pronounced whenever I had to do a presentation of some sort. This, unfortunately, happened quite frequently in high school. My heartrate would shoot up just at the announcement of the assignment and I would spend hours and hours rehearsing until I knew the whole presentation from the top of my head.

When the time to present came, if allowed, I would still bring a full printout, because what if I would get stuck or blackout or — God forbid — not say exactly the right word? I couldn’t imagine anything worse in the world than publicly failing like that. Which meant that for most of the time, I would be monotonously reading from my printed sheet, trying to ignore the fact that it was visibly shaking because my knees were wobbling and my legs seemed to have trouble carrying the bodyweight they would otherwise walk around all day.

As you can imagine, presentations were hell for me. But many other experiences were hindered by my plethora of uncertainties as well. I actually cried once after music class, when the teacher announced that we’d have to perform a simple xylophone tune individually in the next class to get marked on. I just couldn’t bear the thought. I never stopped to question why I was the only one dreading music class and dying from embarrassment during presentations. I just thought that’s who I was and how it was going to be.

Please let me do a presentation

Luckily, somewhere early on in university, something shifted internally. I didn’t have music class anymore, but there were still plenty of opportunities for public failure. I was getting sick and tired of my negative thinking and bringing myself down. Some confidence from external validators, like my academic performance and supportive friends, laid a basis, but it wasn’t enough. I realised that if I could learn all these new study-related things from books and practical sessions, then maybe I could learn how to become better at presenting. Maybe if I improved my skills, I wouldn’t feel so stressed?

My growth mindset took root, and I started to push myself purposely. I signed up for classes that I knew were going to have many opportunities for public failure. I now saw them as opportunities for improve. I was not going to be a natural improvisator, but maybe I could at least come across as human instead of a 3D text-to-speech machine. Spoiler alert: My hard work culminated in a presentation in front of thousands of people for an international competition and I was actually enjoying myself. No printed script in sight. The feeling of victory afterwards is hard to put into words.

While this all was definitely a necessary part of my journey and a great improvement to what had come before, I was mostly still putting on bandages rather than fixing the root cause. I wasn’t looking at why I had felt so stressed about presentations, but rather gone to a solution (practicing my presentational skills), which worked — in this context.

Again? WHY?

After university, however, the same self-esteem issues came back to bite me again. This time at networking events. The key to networking events — who would have guessed — is to actually, ideally, talk to some other people there. And don’t get me wrong, I wanted to. Or, a part of me wanted to, at least. But a much more convincing part of me always managed to give me just the right excuse not to mingle. “Oh, they are already so caught up in conversation, I wouldn’t know what they’re talking about.” “That food looks pretty good, I better go have some. I can always chat to people after.” “Shoot, it’s actually kind of getting late now, and if I catch this next bus… Yes, I better leave now. There’s always the next one.”

As the next networking event rolled around, so did the next round of excuses. The cycle might have continued endlessly, were it not for a facilitator-led peer-to-peer session where I happened to get the opportunity to share this particular conundrum. I think I prefaced it by saying: “It’s not really a big deal, but I want to feel more confident at networking events.” Well, oops. It turned into the biggest deal that I ever dealt with.

Oh, that’s why.

My insecurity was most painfully present whenever I had to approach a group of people that was already caught up in conversation together. My peers asked me lots of questions to get more context, including whether I had any idea of why I felt shy to approach others. I told the group I had previously considered it might be linked to being bullied in primary school, but that I had discarded that since “it hadn’t been that bad. Never anything physical.”

I thought that was that topic covered and we would be looking for the why behind and solution to my problem elsewhere. But to my surprise, I returned to it myself when the facilitator started to ask how I really felt when looking at those groups. I replied almost instinctively “what if I don’t belong, again?”.

I did not immediately register the tears running down my face. They were not tears from sadness. They were just the only outward expression that my body could think of to reflect what was going on inside me. And that was an internal puzzle piece suddenly falling into place. It took me tons of processing and a few coaching sessions afterwards to fully grasp I was still carrying the beliefs of a little girl that didn’t feel accepted by her classmates.

The little girl had grown, but those beliefs had sadly not grown with me. Until I identified them and started working on them actively. It was like I had been stuck in a small box without knowing it. Now that I had opened the box, the world suddenly was bigger. The irony, of course, is that I was the one who stuck me in the box in the first place. But you don’t know to look for the box if you don’t know it’s there.

My gift to you

Identifying and addressing this core limiting belief “I don’t belong” completely changed my experience of networking events. I still enjoyed the food, but I actually made connections, too. The ripple effect was much broader than that, though. I realised that I’m not set in stone. I can change the way I think, the way I behave, how I experience life. Such a precious gift! Much too big a gift to keep to myself.

So, here we are. I hope this little piece of my journey inspires you to take the next step in yours. And if you want some help unpacking those boxes: I know someone… :)

P.s.

I don’t want to pretend that I’m a superwoman now and never doubt myself anymore. My mind still provides me less-than-helpful comments, judgments and general ramblings. But I know now that it is my choice to take them seriously or not. And isn’t that basically a superpower?!