Practice makes perfect

Everyone should at least know that phrase.  How often did we hear it growing up?  Not all of us are "super talented" where we can pick things up in a couple of minutes and then look like we've always known how to do it.

I remember during my college years when studying to become a teacher, they used to video our presentations.  This ways we could see ourselves in all our glory (or not).  When it comes to public speaking, I would say practice does definitely help.  I've been "presenting" now for over 15 years.  I will never say it's "easy" to just get up in front of people, but usually for me when I start going over the basics, I relax and it becomes easier. (I'm a trainer by occupation now).

So, my daughter had a project to do for school.  A diorama.  Not only that, they're going to have to present their information in front of the class.  Bad Mom, we've had over a month to work on the diorama -- we just finished it last night.  We've had their "content" to be delivering for a couple of weeks now -- I'm just now working with her.  It's due this Friday.

I do feel bad that we didn't get it all done when we should have - but there's been sickness in the family and my back being out, along with trying to get the house in shape for my parents visit, there just isn't enough time in the day to get it all done.

So, working with my daughter on presenting has been challenging.  She is a bundle of energy.  The last time she did a presentation, they all marked she needed to stand still.  Which of course I still laugh about - as I don't think she's ever truly still except maybe when sleeping.

What I didn't expect was tears and "I can't do this."  You sit and ask her questions about the topic she can tell you, but to put it in a "report" she blocks herself.  So I've been trying to help her with this.  One of the things I did first was have her hold her hands together in front of her.  Hopefully this will help keep the twitching down.  I have a feeling without this, she's going to be dancing throughout her presentation.  I seriously thought about maybe doing this presentation in song, but I'm not sure the teacher would appreciate that.

Still more tears.  So I sat down and basically told her she had to go through all the points before I'd let her sit down.  You know what?  She did it.  Was it great?  No, it was stilted, but she at least got through it.  Then what was great was we were watching a little TV last night and when the commercials came on at one point, I had her do it again.  It was much better and little drama to go with it. 

I figure if I can continue this process the rest of this week, she may actually have a decent presentation.  So for her, practice may not make it "perfect", but it is definitely helping....

What in your life do you need to practice to help make it perfect?