So for those of you who don't know, I do have a job that I work at during the holidays. I work as a maths and English tutor for a company called Explore Learning. The company basically tutors children aged 4-15 on a 6:1 basis. I won't go into the details of how it works, but in my job I have to do lots of speaking to parents and the general public, which can sometimes prove difficult with my social anxiety so I thought I would write a little post on how I deal with it.
When I first started working with Explore in 2013, I didn't have much to do with parents or the general public, but I did have to tutor a lot of children. That was the first step for dealing with my social anxiety, being able to talk to any child that came into my centre. I also had to get to know new work colleagues which was so hard for me. I'm not always good at approaching new people and starting conversations and the first time I really felt welcome was when two of my co-workers invited me for lunch before a training. I was so nervous about going, but I agreed, and although I sat there awkwardly for a little bit, I started to relax and was able to talk to them easily.
When I was there for a long enough time, they trained me to be a compere. A compere basically signs the children in and out of the centre and gives feedback to the parents as well as making conversation with them. I was about 17 when I got trained to do this and I'm not going to lie, I was completely terrified. It didn't help that my manager watched me the first few shifts I did it and it made me even more nervous than I already was. Some of the parents were really understanding that I was new to the whole compering thing, whereas others were not so kind. Some would get annoyed at me very easily and it would really knock the confidence I had built doing it. I just had to accept that you can't always please everyone and not get too hung up on the fact that I didn't have a good conversation or whatever. There might have been something going on with them which meant they didn't really feel like talking to me.
I think the biggest test for me as a Tutor at Explore was when I was sales trained. This involved actually going up to the general public and attempting to get them to book a trial with us. I remember the actual day of training I did everything I possibly could to avoid going up to people, but the woman who was training me encouraged me so much and said that it didn't matter if people didn't stop and spoke to me. The point was to just smile and say thank you for their time, there was no pressure.
During my three years working with Explore I have grown so much as a person and my social anxiety has improved so much when I'm at work. I see myself at work as not my true self, but a character I play, a character I have almost perfected. I very rarely panic or get stressed at work, I am never worried what a parent thinks of me, I don't avoid talking to parents and I literally do not care what the general public think of me when I go out RMUing and attempting to engage parents. I even answered the phone to a parent the other day which is not something I would have been able to do three years ago.
I guess the whole point of this blog is to show that you can have severe mental health issues but still have a successful work life. I know loads of people who suffer from mental health issues and can often feel very negatively if they start something new, and constantly worry about the prospect of failing. But after that initial hurdle of actually getting there and try it out, it's never as bad as you think it's going to be. I guess for me, I had to realise that the people I work with didn't want me to fail, they wanted to mould me and me the best tutor I possibly could be. So any feedback on my work or whatever was not negative it was just trying to help me improve and it's something that I had to come and realise.
My social anxiety still affects me hugely outside of work, but I've been able to come to a place now where I do not let it affect my work life. I care far too much about my job to let my mental health prevent me from working my hardest and doing my best. Even if I do something wrong, I try not to dwell on it and just ensure it doesn't happen again, now I barely ever make any mistakes and am on the ball with everything. Your work will want you to do well and succeed, but you need to also want to succeed. You will get there eventually.
Stay awesome.
When I was there for a long enough time, they trained me to be a compere. A compere basically signs the children in and out of the centre and gives feedback to the parents as well as making conversation with them. I was about 17 when I got trained to do this and I'm not going to lie, I was completely terrified. It didn't help that my manager watched me the first few shifts I did it and it made me even more nervous than I already was. Some of the parents were really understanding that I was new to the whole compering thing, whereas others were not so kind. Some would get annoyed at me very easily and it would really knock the confidence I had built doing it. I just had to accept that you can't always please everyone and not get too hung up on the fact that I didn't have a good conversation or whatever. There might have been something going on with them which meant they didn't really feel like talking to me.
I think the biggest test for me as a Tutor at Explore was when I was sales trained. This involved actually going up to the general public and attempting to get them to book a trial with us. I remember the actual day of training I did everything I possibly could to avoid going up to people, but the woman who was training me encouraged me so much and said that it didn't matter if people didn't stop and spoke to me. The point was to just smile and say thank you for their time, there was no pressure.
During my three years working with Explore I have grown so much as a person and my social anxiety has improved so much when I'm at work. I see myself at work as not my true self, but a character I play, a character I have almost perfected. I very rarely panic or get stressed at work, I am never worried what a parent thinks of me, I don't avoid talking to parents and I literally do not care what the general public think of me when I go out RMUing and attempting to engage parents. I even answered the phone to a parent the other day which is not something I would have been able to do three years ago.
I guess the whole point of this blog is to show that you can have severe mental health issues but still have a successful work life. I know loads of people who suffer from mental health issues and can often feel very negatively if they start something new, and constantly worry about the prospect of failing. But after that initial hurdle of actually getting there and try it out, it's never as bad as you think it's going to be. I guess for me, I had to realise that the people I work with didn't want me to fail, they wanted to mould me and me the best tutor I possibly could be. So any feedback on my work or whatever was not negative it was just trying to help me improve and it's something that I had to come and realise.
My social anxiety still affects me hugely outside of work, but I've been able to come to a place now where I do not let it affect my work life. I care far too much about my job to let my mental health prevent me from working my hardest and doing my best. Even if I do something wrong, I try not to dwell on it and just ensure it doesn't happen again, now I barely ever make any mistakes and am on the ball with everything. Your work will want you to do well and succeed, but you need to also want to succeed. You will get there eventually.
Stay awesome.
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