SEC-S8W5. "I missed the idea!"

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Hello friends, welcome to my week 5 entry of the Steemit Engagement Challenge of the Season 8 in Scouts sus Amigos. In this week's edition, we are yo talk about an occasion at which we forgot an idea at the middle of a presentation or speech. If you missed the contest post, you can have it here.

When I saw the content of this week's challenge I was all smiling because I had experienced this scenario several times right from when I was younger.

Before I will go ahead with answering the discussion proper, I would like to highlight some possible causes of forgetfulness while delivering a speech or presentation or discussion.

Stage Fright:

One od the reasons why people forget things easily while giving a speech or presentation is stage fright. And this stage fright is often caused by self undervaluation of the your capabilities, overestimation of your audience's expectations, fear of rejection by your audience, inferiority complex etc.

Lack of Sleep And Good Rest:

When the individual doesn't take good rest before going for the presentation, there is a probability of forgetting things.

Anxiety And Fear:

Anxiety is another cause of forgetfulness. When one is over anxious of what is going to happen and how his delivery will turn out, at a point it will instigate fear and lead to forgetfulness.

Medications:

Some drugs can affect the memory most times when taken excessively or misapplied, thereby causing forgetfulness or loss of memory.

Have you ever been saying something and forgot what you were talking about, what happened?

Yes!! I have forgotten what I was saying several times, especially when I was much younger.

I am naturally intelligent, but stage fright was a major problem that couldn't let me be then. I did well those days more in writing than in speech. So those days I use to have this bad stage fright, it wasn't funny at all to me. It was a serious limitation.

Then before going for the presentation or speech, I would remember everything I want to say, but once it was time to deliver, I would forget some major things I was supposed to say, it was so bad. But imidiately I'm done presenting and step out, I will remember everything. Once I remember, I will be very angry with myself.

When you have been asked a question that you know, but at the moment of answering you got confused, how do you respond?

Source

This was one embarrassing incident I had ever experienced. I had visited a very prominent man some time ago, I finished preparing myself for days on how to meet him and how the conversation would go, but the d-day came, I got to his office and I started the conversation first, he listened for a while and asked me a question, I went blank immediately. It was so embarrassing, I was looking for ideas in my mind I couldn't find, so I simply kept quite. When he saw that I kept quite, he just asked me, "but you are sure you know what you want", I just said yes, he said it's ok. And that was how that conversation ended.

Do you always remember your ideas and everything you have to do, or do you have to take notes?

No, I don't always remember all my ideas. This is because I have a lot of things I am responsible for, so many times I do forget some important ideas. So I resort to always taking note of an idea. So even if I forget, I can always recover them from the note I made.

Even when one can remember everything he plans to do, it is necessary that one writes them down. A time will come, maybe after few years and you would want to make reference to that idea, if you don't have it written down you might not remember completely.

When you answer a question, do you repeat the question as part of your answer?

No!! I don't repeat my questions as part of my answers.
Once I am asked a question, I would pay a very wrapped attention to understand the question in my mind before trying to answer. By doing so, I will be able to go straight to the answer based on my understanding.

Has anything curious or serious ever happened because you forgot what you were supposed to say?

No!! Nothing serious or curious had ever happened because I forgot something.
I always find a way to cover up my lapses when I'm being asked something especially in the public. So once I can't remember some important things I was supposed to say, I just use other things and cover up and fast-forward to other topic or discussion.

My experience those days was not funny at all and I was not happy with myself. But I am glad that I was able to overcome that experience.

How Did I Overcome Them?

@talktofaith

I had joined my church in school newly then, after a while I started following them to go talk to fellow students in their lecture halls and invite them for fellowship.

Most times, they said how to overcome your fear is by facing that fear, so I had to face my stage fright fear by always standing before crowd to talk. I found out that after a while I started overcoming that problem gradually until I was out of it totally.

Conclusion
The experience of forgetting things while discussing with someone or while delivering a speech can be so embarrassing. But then it can be overcome. Like myself, I overcame mine by consistently facing crowd and talking to them. So my advice to anyone facing this kind of challenge is to develop another habit to counter that deficiency.

I invite @thomisin, @ruthjoe and @ninapenda to come participate in this contest.