We just finished our first 4 weeks of training and here are some things I've found challenging and how I am trying to address them:
- Time pressure on tasks.
One of the main things that we are taught is to provide high-quality work in a short amount of time. As a perfectionist, it was really frustrating at first that I did not have time to finish tasks in a way I thought would be comprehensive and complete.
However, I learned that when I start the task with planning and assigning time frames to the different elements of the process, it helps me gain clarity on the amount of work I can complete. For example, when we are given a dataset and a certain amount of time to build a dashboard, what I always try to start with is a clear plan of the steps I need to take and give each step a certain amount of time. This helps me to decide on the kind of question I can answer in the given time. - Asking questions.
We are learning a lot of complicated concepts that need to be reiterated and communicated in different ways so we can fully understand them. No one wants to seem stupid in front of other people so we tend to not ask questions when we do not understand things that were just explained. I also made that mistake, I didn't ask questions immediately when something was hard to grasp, hoping that I'll understand it somehow further down the line. And then we had to do a task that required understanding that material...
So I've started to ask more questions immediately when I'm not sure about something, which helped a lot because I realized others might ask the same questions and no one actually thinks "oh you're stupid for asking that". - Public speaking. (typical)
I am the person who is having a mini heart attack before I have to present and shake like a leaf during the presentation.
But really the only thing that helped me overcome this fear is practice! I try to present as soon as possible so I can get over it, have some notes on what I want to say, and do some breathing exercises to help me calm down. The most useful one I found is when I take a deep breath and then exhale while making the most stupid noise I can think of. :)
If you have/come across the same challenges, I hope this blog has some tips that will help you overcome them.
