Out Of My Comfort Zone Analysis Essay Example

hair – in two pigtails on either side of my head. In junior high and high school I was basically remembered as the “quiet girl with the ponytail”, because by then I had graduated from two pigtails to a single ponytail down my back, and as you can see, I haven’t changed that much.

But when people get to know me they are a bit surprised to find that I can be loud, opinionated, and quite talkative. Get me going on one of my favorite topics and I can go into full “geek” mode, boring you with random facts and trivia for hours on end. One of my favorite topics to talk about is the story of the ‘60s record label Motown, founded by Berry Gordy in “Motor City” Detroit. I was recently watching VH1 with my brother when they played an old Supremes song over one of the commercials.

Did you know,” I said to him, “that while today we recognize the Supremes as being one of the most successful girl groups of all time, when they started at Motown it took them a long time to get a hit record. In fact, they were known as the ‘No-hit Supremes’ because they were the only group on the label with no hits. ” To which my brother replied, “Thank you. I was dying to know that”. There have been times when I’ve been forced out of my comfort zone. When I graduated from college, my mother thought it might be a fun idea to throw a party for me with my closest friends and family in attendance.

The guests totaled about

75 people. Near the middle of the party, I glance up and see my good friend Noel at the DJ booth, with a mic in his hand. I assume he’s about to request a song or say something nice to the graduates. Instead he says, “Aiyana and I recently played a game of horse and we made a bet that the loser would have to perform to the winner’s favorite Michael Jackson song. Well, Aiyana lost and now she owes me a dance! ”. …. Oh my gosh – he expects me to dance here in front of everyone.

Now it was absolutely true that we had made that bet, but I had hoped that he would either forget or that I could get away with doing a quick moonwalk in a deserted parking lot somewhere. Everyone was staring at me and I started to make my way toward the center of the dance floor. The DJ starts playing the opening riff of “You Rock My World”, suddenly I’m like, oh well, nothing I can do now, and I go into my best Michael Jackson imitation. For a second, I was in my room and it was just me and the stereo. After my dance everyone cheered, and for 5 minutes I felt like a celebrity.

I learned three things that day: (1) Never make a bet unless you are really prepared to follow through; (2) No one will be hiring me as a Michael Jackson impersonator anytime soon, so I’d better stick with my day job; (3) For a few minutes I was the center of attention, and it wasn’t that bad

– it was actually fun. I did make a fool of myself, but no one cared. And thank goodness this was pre-youtube! Aside from being forced out of my comfort zone, in recent years I have made a more conscientious effort to speak up and get involved in more activities, both in my personal and professional life.

In my private life, I have done things such as attend meet-up groups and volunteer so that I’m forced to meet and interact with new people. Professionally, I have began to take advantage of some of the interesting activities/diversity groups that we have here at the office. For example, I participated in a salsa at lunch group, I attended a women’s networking event, and I dined at the new Harlem Restaurant Red Rooster via a diversity-network sponsored dinner, and now I’m standing here before you giving a speech about myself, something which would have terrified me a few years ago.

By forcing myself out of my comfort zone I ope that I can change the narrative of my story so that soon I can say, “One first impression that people have of me is that I’m somewhat quiet and reserved, … but they soon find that I’m also confident, outspoken, serious when needed, and sometimes silly. ” I got great feedback on my first speech. Everyone was impressed that I didn’t use notes. Knowing I would be nervous, I had read the speech to myself multiple times in advance so I wouldn’t stumble, and thus ended up memorizing it. Each time you give a speech a fellow Toastmaster will evaluate your speech to tell you what

you did well and what you need to work on.

My evaluator liked the stories I used throughout the story and liked the fact that the conclusion tied in with my opening. The areas where I could use improvement were in body language and vocal pitch. I hadn’t noticed that during the speech I nervously tapped on the podium a few times. In terms of vocal pitch, I tend to strike a very conversational tone and volume, which I use throughout my speech. Me evaluator suggested that I could make the speech more effective by finding areas where I could increase or soften my volume.