Hi there and welcome to week 16 of Contemplation, where we share our responses to a prompt from my Kikki.K A Sentence A Day Journal. If you wish to join in, please write a new post answering the prompt below, use the tag Contemplation and link back to this post.
Today’s prompt: What motivated you today?
It was quite difficult to motivate myself today. I am in Brisbane for a week, visiting scientists and talking about our new technologies. This is generally good fun and something I quite enjoy. But I arrived in Brisbane on the weekend and promptly came down with a cold/flu thing. It’s hard to feel motivated when you are exhausted and can’t breathe through your left nostril and then you keep coughing every four and a half minutes. What were we saying last week about challenges being enormous when you’re sick?
Once I found a coffee shop that made me a coffee the size of my head, my motivation kicked in and I got a bunch of work done before my first meeting.
And then my first meeting stood me up! Which left me with an extra hour on my hands. Not very helpful when your head feels like it’s packed full with cotton wool and your eyes don’t want to stay open.
But I was booked in to give a talk this afternoon about our new microscope so I had to push through. I arrived on campus early and spent some time checking emails and discussing some plans for an upcoming conference and then went to do the talk. It was great – everyone was excited about the system and they’ve asked about having a demo in their lab. I generally find it easy to get motivated when giving a talk – I love presenting, it’s something that I actually enjoy. It wasn’t always that way, I used to be terrified of speaking in public. But by now I’ve done it so many times that it isn’t really a big deal anymore.
I remember my first “real” boss made us give talks on the progress of our projects every month. We hated it, agonized over our presentation preparations and sat nervously at the back of the room while our more “seasoned” colleagues did their talks. And he asked so many tough questions. We thought he was pretty mean but it turns out he actaully had an evil and cunning plan to help us become better public speakers and also better scientists by encouraging us to explore beyond what we already knew.
I’m pretty sure that was his plan 😉😉
I think that being comfortable with speaking in public helps in other areas of life as well. It’s easier to open up and to get to know people and to have conversations with strangers as well.
How about you? What motivated you today? And do you enjoy public speaking or are you petrified of it?
x desleyjane
musingsofafrequentflyingscientist.com 
That is actually why I joined our Toastmasters group here at work–because I was scared to death to speak in front of people. So glad for your ‘mean’ boss. There was a method to his madness!
LikeLiked by 2 people
There was! I often talk about that time, I do a lot of early career mentoring talks and I stress to the youngsters how important it is to be comfortable speaking in public.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sometimes mean bosses, aren’t as mean as we think in hindsight..then there are others which seem worse when we look back on them lol. Good for you, I still hate speaking in public, small groups are OK but not large groups. Funnily it doesn’t seem to bother me, when I am teaching?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yep when you’re teaching, you’re the expert, you know your stuff so you aren’t scared. I always get a little nervous beforehand but I put that down to adrenaline.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes that’s so right, adrenalin huh? Could be right on there too
LikeLiked by 1 person
😉😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad you now enjoy it and I bet you’re great to listen to! I used to be confident – I remember standing on a stage to welcome an audience as quite a young child – but I got increasingly self conscious as I got older and now I just get very nervous. I can be ‘forced’ through it but I wouldn’t volunteer.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I still get nervous beforehand but I think it’s the adrenaline kicking in. And it definitely helps when I’m talking about something that I know a lot about 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hope you’re feeling better.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Amy. I’ve been pretty sick but new antibiotics and apparently asthma medication has helped a lot! I haven’t had asthma since I was a kid and didn’t recognize the symptoms.
LikeLike
Glad you’re improving. 🙂
LikeLike
I am usually a very motivated person but after a long sail here, I decided to give myself the luxury of being unmotivated today. The heat cemented my mood.
I used to be terrified of public speaking but with practice, and a lot of deep breathing, I can now manage it pretty comfortably
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oh yes heat can be such a drain. Hope you’re doing well!
LikeLiked by 1 person