What Pushing My Comfort Zone Taught Me

I recently signed up for a public speaking course in Atlanta. Our group meets once a week, and everyone takes turns delivering short three to five minute talks on any topic they want. My talks always start with a plan, but once I run out of steam, I somehow end up back on my favorite subject: self improvement.

My first two sessions were rough. It was hard to articulate anything when twenty pairs of eyes were locked onto me and my brain felt like it was buffering. But after a few attempts, I learned how to slow down, breathe, and actually ground myself on stage. Around the same time, I began attending networking events more consistently. Every couple of weeks I’d go to a tech Meetup and challenge myself to start conversations with people I had never met.

These are things I never imagined I would do. Growing up as a skinny, awkward homeschooled kid gave me a lot of false beliefs about people and about myself. The past few months have completely reshaped that.

Before a talk or a networking event, my mind used to jump straight into disaster mode and predict the worst. My body would follow right along with it: pounding heart, tight throat, sweaty palms, shaking legs. Once the fight or flight switch flipped, turning it off felt impossible. That made my early presentations and conversations feel chaotic and out of my control.

But I learned something important. Most people are kinder than I expected. Even if I stammered or paused too long, they did not fixate on it. They could tell I was trying, and that seemed to matter more than perfection. The stakes were never as high as my mind made them out to be, and with each attempt the physical anxiety eased up.

My conclusion is that soft skills are not personality traits; they’re trainable competencies. The same structure that builds technical skill applies here too: repetition, targeted practice, and post-mortem analysis. Once I understood that, the process became less about confidence and more about systems. If you apply a system, results follow.