Presentation at work went badly and I cannot stop reliving it

[petterflies]

I had to give a presentation at work. I prepared it, thought I knew what to say and really thought it would be fine.
In the moment, it was truly terrible because I froze, missed so much information and really messed it up. This was in front of many colleagues and quite important people. My colleagues just felt sorry for me, the rest just think I’m a clown.
It’s now after midnight and I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve let this colour my whole day and evening, I’m desolate.
I think I’m blowing it out of proportion and want to ask for your support, stories of your experiences to get me over this quickly.
I’m wondering if this part of something deeper, brain fog, perimenopause (it’s not the first time this happened, just not so publicly).

I’m sorry you have had this experience. I know it’s difficult to not overthink but Im sure this happens to more people than you realise and people will be sympathetic. Did you manage to get most of the info out you wanted
to say?

Fuck work! Seriously.

You're so much more than your presentation. And I promise you they know that. The worst it has done is shown you need more polish in the area of presentations.

Fuck that like, you’ve better things to be doing with your energy.

A male colleague of mine did this and laughed it off, a few people took the piss for a bit but he just joined in. I've no idea whether he was cringing inside or if he genuinely didn't care but it was very much "least said soonest mended". He's still there, everyone respects him and it's forgotten.

It might not be as bad as you think OP and for what it's worth even if it really was shit it would still have been 95% better than mine if I did one! Public speaking is really really scary.

Ah, bless you 💐 It’ll take a bit of time, but the memory will fade (yours and theirs).

This might make you feel a bit better.

I had already been dreading giving a presentation, seeing that one of the directors had turned up added to that. I gabbled my way through it. When I'd finished he said the information had been ok, the delivery had been too fast and what was with the dancing?

I had been sort of stepping back and forth, side to side doing what must have looked like some kind of mini salsa. I was even aware of it at one point but couldn't stop myself.

Hopefully you will forget about your presentation quicker than I have mine. It's been a while.😬

Thank you, I did manage to say most of what I’d planned/ practiced but the nerves just took over and then I went blank. I had notes on my phone so had to get it out, find my place and read. That silent moment felt like forever, a nightmare!

I have this feeling that at 40 with a reasonable amount of experience, I should be better. In the past I would have laughed it off. Yesterday, I held out but as soon as I got home, I was crying, dwelling on it instead of enjoying the start of the weekend.

Thank you for replying everyone. It’s funny, after writing the post, I calmed down and fell- getting it out somehow was helpful.

Gabbled is a great word and definitely accurate for what happened yesterday.
The dancing in your story made me smile and I can relate , I was rocking back and forth at some point whilst trying to regain composure.

A senior colleague who had presented (very well) before me, afterwards said, “I know that was difficult for you but it wasn’t as bad as you think, you seemed calm”. The seriousness and kindness of this was painful. Somehow I would have preferred him to say, “wow, what happened, that was rubbish!”

Oh, OP, don’t sweat it. Every single one of us who does any form of public speaking can hold their hand up to at least one horror story. I’m an academic and my first proper 2 hour lecture was to nearly 200 students. I was so nervous I had written down every single word - like a speech, over 20 pages of it. I sped my way through it and the whole thing was done and dusted in 20 minutes. I just had to get them to do some awful activity (chat to the person next to you about…) I’d made up the spot, and then let them go after 45 minutes. I’m still cringing now over 30 years later.

The chances are, even if it didn’t go as well as you’d have liked, it was likely nowhere near as bad as you thought it had. It was better to get out your notes that try to bluster your way through - so at least your information was accurate, and you made it to the end 😁 I once went to a talk and the speaker was so nervous she actually fainted in the middle of her presentation and her colleague had to take over.

Relax and enjoy your weekend. It’s just a blip - nothing more. Work would be boring if it was plain sailing all the time 💐

It's never as bad to people you're presenting to, as it is for you! Ive been presenting in these kinds of in person situations for years and still come away thinking it's not gone well, but feedback is always the opposite.

If this is something you have to do regularly or even semi regularly, I'd recommend looking at some coaching or similar to help your confidence?

Sometimes if I feel ive missed bits (usually because im under prepared and making it up on the spot!) I'll send around the slides with key points outlined briefly in the email. Depends on the presentation though as to whether this would be needed/appropriate etc.

I totally agree! At the same time, i could not/ still cannot just shrug it off.
Part of feeling so upset is also that I’m letting it get to me and already know it will hang over me during the weekend. Angry with myself I messed up, ashamed in front of my colleagues and strangers, angry and sad that i cannot shrug it off.

Your colleagues won’t be dwelling on your presentation. Let it go!

The same thing has happened to me (more than once 😬) but I quickly realised that other people have themselves to focus on.

You delivered all the info you needed to. Job done.

Go and do something nice today.

I’m sorry but this made me laugh.

Failure is important. Next time you’ll do better and practice more. I’ve just been through a very intense process where we had to present (timed) weekly, take blunt feedback and say thank you. But my god the difference it made to everyone was astonishing.

Hi OP, your post brought back memories of an absolutely awful presentation I did in front of senior colleagues (and a peer I had a massive crush on at the time!! 🙈). The shame was so, so intense and it hung over me for a very long time.

I look back on it now and wonder why I had such a massive overreaction. Because you know what? Nobody cares. People look like they’re looking at you intently and they’re pondering every word you say. But truly, most switch off to quite a large degree and think about dinner, or football, or whatever. The minute you finish, their mind moves on to the next thing. And by the next day, your talk will take no space whatsoever in your colleagues’ minds.

Enjoy the weekend!

Empathy from me too, I still shudder at the thought of a group presentation I did where one of the team just went on and on about a really inconsequential bit of the topic and instead of trying to stop him and move things on, we stood there silently. He was mortified afterwards.

I have also gabbled my way through a presentation, spoken too quietly or stepped away from the mic so nobody could hear, forgotten what I was going to say despite prompts etc.

It’s all practice and preparation. I am still very uncomfortable with presenting but the only way to improve is to do more of them and ask for honest feedback each time.

Please don’t worry, you were nervous which is understandable, but you had prepared and had notes so you were ready for that eventuality. I would never judge someone who was nervous but ready and ended up referring to notes.

it was the biggest thing in your day, but for your colleagues a small part of it.

Many of your colleagues will have been full of admiration for you just getting up there in the first place. It takes a lot of courage when you’re not used to it, and I’d wager that even experienced people still have a bit of anxiety before they start.

Im a retired academic. When I was a postgrad I had to give a turorial to some students on Karl Marx's concept of alienation. I could not recall the word "alienation" until half way through the talk and then it came to me. Fortunately I was able to talk around the word and style it out.

Well done on getting through it. Public speaking is an art learned through practice.

I do presentations fairly regularly. And the fear does not go away and neither does the postmortem reliving of it (er, that might just be me)... the only thing that has changed is that there's now so many more examples of my cock ups to relive.

I have also gabbled and done the blank pause. I also got out of step with my Powerpoint slides and it was three slides later before I realised.

I had to do a presentation about my department to new joiners at work. I'd been there years and knew my topic I side out. However, I had never liked presenting and got extremely nervous. There were about 60 grads in the room and they had to be told to close their shiny new laptops and stop talking by one of the hosts. I began ok, but there was a couple at the front who kept whispering and it was distracting me. Then they started laughing while whispering. In my head I thought they were laughing at me and I froze. It seemed like forever but probably was only like 5-10 seconds. I said to myself you either need to carry on or walk out. I carried on but rushed the rest of the presentation because I was stressed. Afterwards I made my excuses to go home instead of back to the office as I felt traumatised. I know that sounds OTT but I really was shaking.

I did get much better at it, as it was a regular thing to educate new joiners about different areas of the business. After a year or so I learnt to not put up with rudeness from grads and if anyone was constantly whispering or laughing I'd stop and ask them if they wanted to share with the rest of the room.

I used to hate presenting and can totally relate to the going blank/ nearly fainting/ gabbling thing!

What helped me was a) realising no one is listening that closely and related to that b) telling myself I REALLY want to impart this information.

So, rather than thinking of it as “I am up here on show and everyone is hanging on my every word” I thought “ they are looking through me and thinking about lunch but I really want them to understand what I’m saying”.
This made me talk much more slowly, pause to look at notes and re group and generally make it less about me and more about conveying interesting information.

Think of it like being a teacher in front of children- the children are not sitting there waiting for teacher to mess up, they are just waiting to learn something/ have their attention grabbed.
I hope that makes sense!
Did laugh at the mini- salsa post though 😆

You know when you lie in bed at night and relive every embarrassing thing you’ve done since you were a kid? Do you ever think about other people’s embarrassing moments?

No.

Exactly! Nobody’s thinking about yours either.

Please don’t overthink this. Most attendees wouldn’t have known what you had planned or prepared, and as long as you got the main message across, that’s what really matters.

I’ve seen some of the most accomplished professional speakers have memory lapses, lose their train of thought, or refer back to their notes during presentations. It happens, and it certainly isn’t the end of the world for them. It shouldn’t be for you either.

The reality is that most people are focused on themselves rather than analysing every detail of someone else’s presentation. By the time the meeting is over, people are usually thinking about their next task or conversation and won’t remember the small things you’re worrying about now.

Be kind to yourself and give yourself some grace. You did it, you got through it, and it’s almost certainly gone much better than you think.