A Few Sneaky Tips for Calming Nerves

Tomorrow I have to give a presentation to the staff and postgraduates of my department. Although this isn't my first time public speaking, I'm still feeling jittery. Do you have any tips for calming nerves? Here are a few of my tried and tested methods...

1. Be prepared. If I've practiced what I'll be saying, and have all my papers ready the night before, I immediately feel more in control. Sometimes I even rehearse how I'll introduce myself, or how I'll phrase any little jokes I've planned!

2. Power dress. Tomorrow I'll be wearing my brand new American Apparel black sweater dress with a statement necklace. When all eyes are on you, I think it's important to present yourself well. But avoid anything too fussy, or any jewelry that you're going to fidget with while you speak.

3. Distract yourself. The night before/morning before/hour before. Watch a film, go for a run, grab a coffee with a friend (and make a rule not to talk about your presentation), or read a new book or magazine. There's no point in wasting time worrying.

4. Have a pump-up song. Listen to it whenever the jitters strike. Here's one of my suggestions:

5. Lastly, have a treat planned afterwards: you deserve it! Post-presentation, I'm going for a drink with my girlfriends and then we're going to eat falafel (these leopardy shoes would also be an excellent treat)

Now go and show them what you're made of!

p.s. the no-big-deal theory also applies

Photos: workspace (Sunday in Bed); outfit (Dooney and Bourke); man reading (Salty Denim); leopard shoes (Pinterest)

Design by Aaron Kelwick

'whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that, in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest'

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.

On Not Making a Big Deal

 

One, Two

It's just over one week until I have to do that something scary. Public speaking, to 200 people. I still feel a little bit sweaty when I think about it, but the other day I came to an epiphany.

If we don't make a big deal out of things, maybe they won't feel like such a big deal.

I don't know about you, but this is something I'm having to remind myself of. It's up to us how much of a big scary deal we make things into. 

Now, doesn't that feel better.

YIKES.

YIKES by fromkate featuring butter london

In less than a month I'll be doing some public speaking, for an hour, to over 200 students. My feelings about it are mixed, I switch (hourly) between "You've got this" to "F&@*&$@"

Is this sufficient justification to buy a pair of Vivienne Westwood shoes?

Tonight, as I lie in bed with a stuffy nose, propped up by pillows, wearing a stained jumper and reapplying Vaseline to my sore lips every few minutes, it feels like pulling this thing off is near impossible. Largely because I haven't even written what I'm going to say yet, let's be real.

p.s. unpictured: tequila shot

Life Lessons from Charles John Huffam Dickens

One, Two, Three, Four

Today is the day; it's Dickens's bicentenary. Two hundred years since the man who was to create Oliver Twist, Ebenezer Scrooge and Miss Havisham came into the world. I feel a peculiar affinity to Charles John Huffam as he's the most well-known writer I'm exploring as I write up my PhD on the Victorian Christmas. It's amazing how this writer's works seem to have subtly seeped into the national, and international, mindset. Whenever I'm in London I can't help but remember his descriptions of the urban metropolis. I walk down the same streets and, with his words in mind, I'm able to vividly recapture the sights, smells and colour of a city almost two hundred years younger. 

In the first year of my research I read Peter Ackroyd's biography of the writer, entitled Dickens. I was struck by Ackroyd's depiction of Dickens's unflagging creative energy. One of the things that is undeniable about him is that he was an incredibly hard worker. To regularly write novels the size of Bleak House; contribute to, and meticulously edit periodicals; and travel around the country giving public readings, you'd have to be, especially in Victorian London. Not to mention Dickens's theatrical endeavours, his charity work, and, of course, his yearly contributions to the Christmas marketplace. While I'm no hero-worshipper of Dickens (have you read this article?) I always find hard workers very inspirational. In between his work, and often as a thought-filled extension of his work, he loved to walk. Walking was part of his daily routine - sometimes he would clock up double-digit miles wandering through the bustling city, and often in the middle of the night he would set out on a dark ramble through the streets of London. After reading about Dickens's schedule of solid writing sandwiched between endless walks, I remember feeling challenged to walk more myself. Now I usually walk for an hour each day, and although it may not be through the dark streets of nineteenth century London, and I definitely don't walk 20 miles, it gives me that space to move and think and focus, and...it's a little bit of the real Dickens in my daily life.