What I learnt from a Model United Nations Conference :

Are MUN’s only about debating ? Or is there much more to it?

Hey Re-inventors!

Communicating with a hundred people in one room was not the most comfortable task for me



Have you ever been to an MUN?

What country did you represent?

Was it a good experience?

All the above questions were becoming more and more common for me (as MUN took my city like a trendy Ed Sheeran song) and somehow I did not have a proper answer to the last one (For quite some time).

Through today’s post, I’ll be telling you about my first MUN experience.

So, I was a normal kid in 10th grade and suddenly I realized that MUN was a new trend in our city and everyone had started doing MUNs. Pretty much following the wave, I told my teacher that I too wanted to go for an MUN and she agreed without any hassle.

The behavior of my teacher was such because I had previously performed well on various debate competitions and dramas and she, like me, thought that I could do well in an MUN too and possibly win an award.

From there onwards my expectations were high.

Soon enough I got my background guide and started researching. I could not find any information whereas my friends who were going to the same committee as me were finding information like finding shells on a beach!

Nevertheless, I did not lose my confidence. I gathered some material from here and there and prepared enough content for 9-10 one-minute speeches spread over 3 days.

The next three days were quite uncomfortable for me and all I did was bluntly read from some pages and fumbled in between too.

After the conference ended, I knew I was not going to win at all and asked the Executive Board for feedback. They told me “YOU LACK CONFIDENCE”.

These words came as a thunderclap to me and broke all the notions that I had regarding myself.



Did this really break me down? NO.

I used it as a motivation to improve my performance even further.

I got acquainted with all the procedures thoroughly and prepared day and night for my 2nd one which had a committee 0f 90 delegates (as compared to the 1st one which had 35) and there were only 3 awards!

I knew I had to win an award. This time I spoke confidently without any paper in my hand, knew everything about the topic and at last I won an award.

Since then there has never been a MUN where I did not win.

Now I realize that losing my 1st MUN was very critical to win all the other MUNs. Even outside of MUN, this experience increased my overall confidence.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM THESE EXPERIENCES:

PEOPLE DO NOT GIVE A SHIT AS MUCH AS YOU THINK

We usually shape our behavior according to other people’s expectations (which is a very wrong thing to do) and that’s okay; even I was there at some point.



But we do need to realize that other people are also thinking the same thing as us.



Even they are conscious to talk to other people and often they are so focused on themselves that they do not pay as much attention to you as you think (which is the main reason for low confidence).



Once you make this switch, your confidence will drastically improve.



This was an unusual post sharing an important experience of my life. Hope you all learn something from it.

Keep Re-inventing yourself guys!

Cheers!!