Sometimes it happens to me that I could not perform something that I thought I could, or could not articulate something that in my mind I could. That’s true for many of us. We think we know things. We think we can give answers. We think we can play certain parts. But when we get on stage and go on to show we fail to articulate. We fail to deliver. We fail to perform. Confidence without practice is a bad thing.
Articulation in your brain and reality are two different games. In reality it always harder than what you think it is.
Say for example, when you prepare for giving a presentation it happens that you often feel prepared, ready to go. It seldom feels like taking more preparation, doing practice. But every time you lack preparation you screw up. It was all good before going live, you were fully charged before going on stage. But suddenly everything gets blurred and you fail to deliver.
You know everything to say in next meeting, in next interview. It is there in your head, already. You are just waiting for the chance to deliver. But suddenly when opportunity appears you under perform. It slips out of your hand.
These are few of common experiences we all share. We have moments we fail. We screw up. We fall short of our standard. Why?
Why we can’t act at the level we think we can act? Why mental sense of preparation does not work in practice?
More importantly, what should we do to avoid this?
Articulation is tough job. Creating a story in mind and writing it on paper are two different things to do. You may be very good at making things up inside your brain but very bad at delivering it. When we create things, experiences, understanding inside our brain we do it only for ourselves. There are no other audiences, no critics. You create for yourself. You do for yourself. And you judge your performance.
But in reality the game is different. Someone else judges you. You need to articulate the story for someone else not for you. The taste of your audience is not your taste. The things that you think best part of your talk are not essentially compatible with the best of your audience.
So, when you’re thinking you are ready you are not ready at all. Make sure you tested your confidence.
How can we overcome this problem and stop screwing up?
Take it out of you head. Write it. Tell it. Practice it.
If you want to tell a story, don’t rely on your mind and your belief that you can deliver it fine but take it out in reality. Write it down. Tell it. Practice it.
Taking something out of your head and putting it on paper is a tough job. You can think of a business plan very clearly and even can see it there, nice and complete. But when it requires putting on paper then the whole things start to disappear. You can’t connect dots.
One of the reasons why we don’t take deliberate effort to describe things, put things on paper, write things down is that ‘we can’t’. It’s hard. But when you are up for something keeping loophole is dangerous. It’ll only lead to problems. While skipping a step offer temporary relief it will bring way much headache at the end.
If you need to do it, take it out of your head otherwise don’t think of doing it right.
