A Hop, Skip, and a Jump Out of My Comfort Zone

Complacency will be your biggest enemy abroad.  I implore you to leave your hesitation behind and try things you might not have been confident enough to try back home. That's what I did when I decided to give a welcoming speech at the Kanda University Entrance Ceremony for the international students. Though know that you don't have to take that step alone. A lot of people may assume that they have to take the journey themselves in order to prove they can do it without assistance. To that I say, "I guess", you can go that route and take a solo venture but there's also another option. The very popular "power of friendship", and let me tell you it really is a superpower.

See, at the start of the IES Abroad Orientation, our program directors asked for volunteers to give a welcoming speech to the international students who were participating in this semester abroad programs.  They prefaced that the speech could be in either English, Japanese, or both and mentioned that you did not have to be proficient in Japanese in order to do the speech.  Usually in these situations I tend to check out and let another person take the reins of giving a motivational speech. Even then I was still on the fence about actually taking that step to volunteer to give the speech. It wasn't until I had jokingly talked about doing the speech as a "what if" notion that one of my friends said, "no you should totally do it I was also thinking of doing it". Something about those words really struck me and I began to entertain the thought of me giving a speech in both Japanese and English to a crowd of international students. For days I argued back and forth with myself on whether or not I should or could do it, worrying about if I would be good enough or what would happen if I translated something wrong due to my lack of practice.  For anyone who is not used to public speaking or scared of feeling unprepared I'm right there with you. Before this I had only spoke in front of a big crowd once or twice, and the need to be overprepared is always there. Despite that and all those thoughts, a small feeling in the back of my mind was speaking to me. Calling out to me in a way that told me that I needed to do this speech, or I would regret not taking the chance of doing something new, unnerving, and exciting all in one. As a result, I found my fingers already typing out an email to one of the program directors asking if the spot was still available for the taking. It was, and I felt happy and freaked out at the same time. In mere days I was about to talk in front of a lot of people in a language I was not confident in, talk about a bravery test huh. 

To make a long and tedious story short the speech had gone a lot better than I expected (minus all the panic and freak out mere hours before I had to give it). When I talked to and met the other students, they said it sounded good. That made me realize that you will always be your worst critic, you will be noticing the micro issues and start to blow them out of proportion.  

My Ways to Stop Panicking Before a Speech 

1. If you're feeling sick or ill don't hold it in 

   It was the morning of the big day, I woke up and instantly the reality of what I was about to do hit me like a ton of bricks, and I felt ill.  At first, I did my best to hold back the feeling of being sick. Thinking if I ignored it then it would simply disappear. Well, that made it worse as the tension and pressure in both my mind and body grew.  Realizing this I then tried to relax and not push down what I felt were my panic and anxiety and let them out. By the end of that morning fiasco, I felt a bit better. 

2. Go outside and touch some grass or stare at a tree

   Staying in my room felt stuffy and tight. I needed fresh air, and a lot of it. My best solution was to go to the school and sit in the communal garden area to just breathe in the air and stare at the cherry blossom tree in front of my chosen bench. I could feel myself relax more as I let all my thoughts quiet down.

3. Physical Exercise to tire yourself out 

   This one has been talked about before as a sort of "hack". I tried it out for the first time before my speech after my garden sitting session. I did any kind of minimal physical exercise that would get me a little tired out. The idea is to exhaust yourself, so the feelings of anxiety and panic somewhat dissipate since you won't have enough energy to strongly produce those emotions.

I know this one was not as long as the others, but I felt that I needed to share my experience with jumping leagues out of my comfort zone to do something I would probably pass up on at home. This moment for me will truly serve as more motivation in the future to try out new things. Already I am feeling at least a little more confident than when I was when I first arrived. The idea that if I could stand up in front of a crowd and give a speech in both English and Japanese makes me feel like I could do many things. Knowing that my Japanese is less than proficient, and have it sound good to the ears of other international students from other countries makes me feel like I'm on cloud nine.  So if and when you decide to go abroad in your chosen location rip off that Band-Aid of hesitation and go for it.