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Old 11-02-2016, 04:56 PM
  # 10 (permalink)  
LexieCat
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 16,633
Hey, this is timely for me. Part of my job involves presenting trainings (to police, prosecutors, advocates, etc.) and it's never been something I've felt particularly good at. There are a number of reasons, including the fact that much of what I have to present isn't selected by me, but rather dictated by others. So I'm limited in my ability to be creative and approach it my own way.

Fortunately, I only have to do this on an average of once a month or so. This past month, though, I had three in far-flung parts of the country over the course of only three weeks. The first two that I did felt like major FAILS. I felt like I kept losing my train of thought, we had tech issues, a few times I felt like I "lost" my audience--I actually compared one of them to what comedians refer to as "dying" onstage. The last one I did went reasonably well, but I was still beating myself up for the first two--and I blamed my own lack of preparation, for the most part.

Interestingly, today I got the evaluations from the second one I was worried about, and the reviews were GLOWING. So go figure. LOL, I imagine these folks don't get out to trainings all that much. I'm still annoyed with myself for those two, but I am probably the best in my organization at some of the other things I do (mainly writing/editing). So I do contribute--this is just one of those things I have to do that I don't enjoy or feel like I do particularly well.

As it is, though, there are lots of things about my job that I DO love, and no job is perfect. Over the course of my career, I've also hit slumps where I don't have the same level of enthusiasm I like to bring to my job. I'm in one of those right now, and based on past experience, it is likely to pass.

If I were you, I'd hold off on jumping into something else until you find something that REALLY grabs you. I totally get wanting to feel charged up about the job, but a lateral move that just gets you out of one job into another just for the sake of a change isn't great unless your job or some aspect of it is truly intolerable (which doesn't seem to be the case).

I wonder if you could come up with a new idea or project that might benefit your agency? Something that you could plan and try to establish that would advance the overall mission of your organization? For example, one of the things I really missed about my old job was the opportunity to work on ACTUAL cases, rather than just giving advice or assistance or training. I've got a lot of appellate experience, and I persuaded my boss to start letting me work on some friend-of-the-court briefs in significant cases. I got to help write one for the U.S. Supreme Court a few months ago, and we've done several over the past few months. Our position has been the winner so far on every one, and it's great to feel like I helped "win" a case again. And it makes us look good--it adds to our value and credibility as a nonprofit in our area of expertise.

Just a thought.
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