Induction Ceremony

Two weeks ago, our school had our National Honors Society Induction Ceremony. I am the historian of the NHS chapter so in the ceremony, I spoke about the history of our chapter and of NHS and about what the character pillar means. Beforehand, I had to write my speech and then prepare for delivering the speech. Both of these came as a challenge to me because I haven’t written many speeches and I have always been uncomfortable speaking in front of a lot of people. Writing this speech helped me develop my skills in writing, estimating time to read, and writing that flows when speaking it. Once I overcame the challenge of writing my speech, I had to work to overcome the challenge of my anxiety and actually delivering the speech. Before the event, I told myself that I could do it and that everything would go well. This positive self-talk really helped me to believe in myself. When I was actually delivering the speech, I started off shaky and nervous but soon realized that I have nothing to be nervous about. I began to really focus on what I was saying and the way I was delivering it instead of focusing on just getting over with it. I slowed down my talking speed, spoke more clearly, and made more eye contact. Not only did this make my speaking better, but it also made me more confident in my ability to speak publicly. Public speaking is one of my biggest challenges so, overcoming it this time really helped develop a new mindset around public speaking and skills that are needed to speak. This demonstrates learning outcome 2 where I undertook challenges and developed new skills in the process.