Inventory Yourself in Ten Minutes
Today, you can do this in ten minutes:
1. You’ll make an inventory of the skills you’re most proud of.
2. You’ll gain a touch of experience speaking in a stressful setting.
3. (Hidden bonus!) You’ll identify a job you really want: one that matches those skills you love.
____________
Today I was put in a tight spot. I was participating in a psychology study measuring the physical effects of stress on the body, and a critical part of the experiment, apparently, was putting me into a stressful situation.
What this meant to the researchers was that I, wired with electrodes and a blood-pressure cuff, was reading a wonderful cooking magazine when a man and a woman walked into the room. The man asked me to stand up and turn around, which I did with only a minor entanglement in the wiring. He promptly informed me that, in a few minutes, they would return to the room. Then, I would give a 5-minute “interview” for them, telling them exactly why I deserved the job.
“Any questions before we leave?” he asked.
“What job?” I said.
“Whatever job you like.”
So they left, and I set to thinking.
Here, however, is where you come in. If you were in this situation, right now, what would you do? Take a piece of paper to plot out your speech – take just five minutes. And don’t forget the first step – choosing the job you’re interviewing for.
Now give the speech. Without the notes. It’s best if you have someone in the room there with you, timing you – that way you can’t tell how much time you have left. It’s not that you’ll run out of time. It’s that you’ll have a lot left, and you may not know what to do with it right away. Twice today I stopped and asked “How much time is left?” only to hear “Please continue.”
If this sounds jarring, that’s because it is. After my experience, my heart rate had jumped and my blood pressure was way up. I was lucky to have some experience with public speaking so that I could at least keep my knees from shaking. But the best part was that it forced me to dig a bit deeper into the specifics of my skills, figuring out exactly how they tied into the job I’d just described and detailing those benefits exactly.
So take that “stress” and make your day and your life a little better. And in just ten minutes, too.
(Photo credit: mrettig and Kolby Schnelli)
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