My First Step Towards Becoming a Better Speaker

Over this weekend, I was able to take advantage of an opportunity at work, to improve on my public speaking skills. I work at Wegmans Food Markets and the entire month of February we have been raising money for the Food Bank of Western New York. During my shift on Saturday, I was asked to be in charge of cheering on the cashiers as they receive donations from customers. This required me to make announcements into a bull horn informing customers of the fundraiser and how they can help Wegmans make a difference in the community as well as announcing whenever a cashier received a donation of five dollars or more.

There were a few reasons why I agreed to take on the responsibility of cheering on the cashiers. It was a job that I have never gotten to do before in my 6 years of working there, however the main reason was that I knew this task made me feel uncomfortable and I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to push myself outside of my comfort zone.

When I first started I was a bit anxious and felt hesitant announcing the donations loudly over the bullhorn. After the first hour however, I began to feel more comfortable and some of my anxiety began to fled. By the end of the day, I felt completely comfortable and realized there was no need to feel anxious at all.

I think by taking this small step outside of my comfort zone this weekend, I was able to work on letting go of my anxieties and feel more relaxed. Granted this was no major speech or presentation I was giving, I believe it still had some impact on my personal views on speaking in public and sparked a positive push in the right direction. My next step is to work on making presentations, as I know I have a handful of assignments coming up which require me to do so.