STAGE FRIGHT

STAGE FRIGHT

The next participant is Prateek Sharma, called the anchor.

He crumbled the piece of paper inside his fists, gathered all his courage and went to the stage for his first debate in his life. He was a very shy guy and felt extremely anxious around people.

Five minutes earlier, Rishabh, a smashing eloquent, carried out an exquisite performance which made it even tougher for Prateek. After watching him perform so well, all his self confidence and courage went down the toilet and he was sitting there, majorly freaked out. In his hands was a piece of paper with some scrambled points in it, too hard to remember. Moreover, he had never done public speaking in his whole life, but all he knew was the fact that he had to do this, for this is his first year in college and he wanted to have an experience to learn from, to get better, to check his capabilities. So he   took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down, and cool mindedly started planning how to present himself up there.

As luck would have it, he got a whole bunch of ideas within a second on how to start. He wrote down all the points very quickly, and a greeting message for all, since all he wanted was to impress the audience in front of him in every way possible. He even recited all that he prepared in his mind twice. With all these preparation, he went up to the stage, all nervous and scared.

No matter how much we want to try new things, at first we all get stuck inside our brain with a lot of confusion and questions, and all he wanted was to get out of his growth zone, since he believed no-one can grow within their comfort zone. With all this in his mind, he went up and started to speak when the most unfortunate thing  happened. He experienced his first panic attack up at the podium in front of everyone. The initial panic attack and the ones to follow were intense: racing heart, sweating, shaking, difficulty breathing, a complete loss of control. When so many eyes stare at you, it can often be very intimidating. Fear of failing in front of so many people makes us shiver & tremble. Feelings of anxiousness, confusion, and anticipation raced through his body. He stood frozen like a stone statue in his footsteps. People quickly snapped their heads shifting the center of attention in his direction. People turned and whispered to their neighbors. One whisper turned into three whispers and continued to grow until a mass of hushed whispers filled the air. He was filled with the fear of what they were thinking and saying about him. He was blank. He felt like the clock stopped ticking. He didn't understand what to do. This was the longest few seconds of his life.

Yet somehow, he closed his eyes, gathered Every inch of courage he had inside, and literally read out all the points he had written in that crumbled sheet of paper. As soon as he completed, he thanked everyone inside the hall for listening to him, took his sheet and with water in his eyes, steeped down from the stage. And the next destination was a closed room, he sat there crying quietly all night, so that no-one hears him.Quite expectedly, he didn't win any award for his college, but somehow managed to bag a nightmare-kinda-experience. The next day, he didn't have the award in his hand, true. But one thing which he had was an experience to learn from.

He learnt that he had only two choices left: either force himself to face his fears or avoid them and never reach his full potential."You have to do it. And the sooner you do it, the better. It’s so much easier to learn the right habits when you’re young. If you have a fear of associating with people, you have to go out there and do it, and it’s painful…," he said to himself and decided to take the first path and enrolled in a course for public speaking. There, he was relieved to find 30 other people like him, struggling with the same issue. It somehow made him feel less embarrassed. Though, at the start, it was tough for him to cope up, but being extremely courageous and hard working, he managed to master the skill of public speaking within months. This not only improved his speaking skills, but also gave a boost to his confidence and self esteem.Ignoring all the gossips that he had last time, with all the positive and encouraging words, he was able to overcome his Insecurities and doubts.

Another year came round, and by then, he was a much skilled speaker. He didn't chance across any anxiety or any panic attack. He was more of a confident guy, waiting for the anchor to call him on there.And to people's surprise, this year the trophy was named after Prateek .

If you have experienced any such incidents in your life, we would love to hear about you in the comments section.