Anxiety during work meetings

Hi, I recently had a meeting at work where I was required to speak up more than I usually do. But I just felt like everyone was judging me so hard as everything I said seemed to come out wrong.

We have a system where we log wins and losses from the company online and we’d had a win come through but it hadn’t been changed yet as it had just come through. But on the meeting I assumed it rang a bell and we’d previously already came across this. I was wrong and felt so embarrassed for assuming this.

I then was talking about a loss I had and the way I worded it seemed like I was blaming my colleague. It was one I had passed over during my annual leave but I simply said “it’s one James submitted” and my manager laughed sarcastically “ oh so you’re blaming James”.

When talking about the win that came through my manager asked me to give more details on it. But as it was from a few months ago I didn’t remember it particularly well, I felt so silly just saying “I haven’t been through the docs yet sorry”. I then said “I’ll get this logged by tomorrow”, which he then replied saying “ by tomorrow you mean by the end of today as the report gets sent out straight away”.

I just don’t know why I word things so terribly, I get really anxious when I need to speak up and I’m not a social person in general. As soon as the meeting finished I just broke down crying thinking why did I even say those things. I also always feel like I’m not intelligent enough to be in this job as everyone around me seems to be able to speak up and describe things I can’t. Yet I’ve been working in this job now for 7 months. I always feel like things happen to me and me only. At this time of the meeting I had to multi task other things as well as answering the questions in the meeting. Because I hadn’t had time to go through the loss I wasn’t aware of what to say. Anyways enough rambling…..

Does anyone have any tips to just be more confident in general and not panic when needing to speak up. I’ve probably already given the impression that I can be a bit stupid but it’s not something I want to keep doing. I don’t understand why I panic after things like this, everyone probably just logged off and I’m sat here dwelling over it.

Reply 1

emily-05

Hi, so you might not want advice from an 18 year old who has never had a job, but I have also struggled with communicating effectively with others and anxious feelings so I hope that I can offer some help. I would say that it would be useful to find a method of scheduling which ensures that you can keep on top of all of your responsibilities and to set reminders for yourself so that you won't forget anything.

For general anxiety there is a book called "Ten Times Calmer" by Dr Kirren Schnack which I am about halfway through and it has been really useful for methods to manage anxious thoughts etc. As for being confident, I think there needs to be some self-reflection on your feelings of inferiority and to try and acknowledge your own successes so that you can feel better about yourself.

Of course, it also helps if you can prove yourself to be intelligent through your work, not for anyone else, but for yourself. When panicking while trying to explain something, I would suggest taking a breath and a pause instead of feeling the need to reply instantly because then you have some more time to think carefully. Also if possible, planning what you think you will need to be saying/presenting in that meeting ahead of time (if possible ofc) and going into the meeting with an idea of what to say will give you a more confident appearance and stop you from mixing up your words. I hope this is of some use and I hope that you are able to find your confidence :smile: