Day 41 Without Anxiety
Event Organising
What's The Challenge?
To organise a fundraising event for a Charity.
Why The Anxiety?
As you may know (from Day 30 and Day 32) I applied for a job at a charity, whilst I had a few skills and qualifications towards the job, I had little confidence, cried in the talking interview and panicked on the task section of the interview (the joys of anxiety). I was lucky and grateful for the feedback I was given, they decided to take a chance on me and asked me back to help volunteer, to help increase my confidence and allow me to learn new skills. One of the tasks they asked me to do is bring to fruition the event plan I had made and presented in my initial interview. I have never before organised an event in any type of professional capacity, help! I hope my skills as a social secretary in college and on my dance team and the little experience I gained hosting and helping at small fundraisers will help. In reality, I feel I actually have no idea what I'm doing. Help!
Anxiety before? 🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴⭕⭕⭕
It's odd and a little difficult to plot the course of this one. So I'll go from when I was first asked onto the project and plot through some of the processes until the big event (Day 42). As always there's a lot of information I cannot share due to confidentiality and copyright, but I'll try and bring you along as much as I can.
Unsurprisingly when I was first asked aboard this project I wanted to cry. I was shocked that the team liked my idea and that they wanted me to work on it. As we talked it over I started to get excited but was also equally frightened that I wouldn't be able to pull it off. I had already been upfront and honest about my event organisation background and skills and asked for help straight off the bat. Not only would this be the first professional event, but it would also be for charity, to raise important funds for a good cause (I don't even organise parties/ gathering anymore in fear that no one will turn up let alone something which has to raise money).
Anxiety During? 🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴⭕⭕⭕⭕
I could not have done this without the Fundraising Events and Marketing team, they supported me throughout this whole process, welcomed me into the team and despite initial nerves I started to feel comfortable fairly quickly. The one thing I hadn't been anxious about in the beginning was getting ill, but as those close to me will know I get ill far too often (I once won an award for most illnesses in a year, true story) and with an added mix of IBS, I felt like I was absent more than I would have liked and didn't do as much as I was hoping to.
One of the first tasks was location scouting, we narrowed down requirements and set about finding adequate spaces. I got in touch with the proprietors and set up a few meetings ( yes me! the person that has to amp herself up for any type of professional phonecall was ringing away!?), went to look around the spaces and sat in meetings and negotiations on hiring and rental prices. Finding the locations was one of the hardest aspects. An event can't happen if you don't have a space to host it. I felt lost in the beginning and actually resorted to looking at maps and ariel views of locations. I was in that state of "what on earth am I doing" ( you know, the one that's similar to trying to assemble furniture without any instructions).
I was going into the office to do work but rather than starting off in the office space, I was allowed to work in one of the meeting rooms and found this was easier for me to place phone calls, and correspond with external businesses, I later integrated into the main space. The team reassured me I was on the right path in my location search and as I became more comfortable around the team I started to use meeting rooms less and less until I only used them for actual meetings.
Before every meeting or location scouting outing, the anxiety decided to pop on by and came along for the ride. I was so nervous not only that my research would be a fail and the location completely unsuitable but also that I would put a foot wrong or say something that misrepresented the charity and that I could potentially destroy a contact and relationship between the charity and business before it even occurred. The events manager was more than accommodating with reassuring my worries and answering my questions. My worries eased with every location we visited until I was only focused on the location and its suitability.
There was a lot of research, files to be looked over, quotes to get, setting up an event plan, finding resources, amenities, and extras. Luckily for me, I was not working from scratch and the events team was incredibly resourceful already having a list of vendors, and relationships with businesses within the community. I did at times feel as though I was in a sea of information which was hard to swim through, and was grateful for all the help I received. In fact, I feel a lot of my time was spent at a computer researching one thing or another. In the beginning, when I was asked to research something, I wondered whether I would be able to take on the task, now I'll make it my mission to find an answer, or at least contribute some ideas and findings to the meeting or conversation.
There were a few brainstorming sessions and meetings, and after a while, I started to feel more confident and found some of my ideas were actually useful. Slowly but surely the pieces were coming together. I'd learned there's a priority order to worrying about certain matters, and some things (such as weather) cannot be controlled but provisions can be put into place. I'd also started to learn that planning an event isn't always straight forward, very often numerous pieces of the puzzle aren't fully formed until the very last minute or a piece can go missing at the last minute. For instance, a company may drop out, a problem may happen at the location, you may not get confirmation from someone until the day before or certain equipment may not arrive. It would be fine for a small scale event or party but for a busy/charity it could make or break.
It wasn't always smooth sailing and even after I had been volunteering for a while I would still have days where I would panic before heading out (see Day 34) or feel very uncomfortable and doubt myself. There are times when my anxiety was too gripping and I couldn't make it in, other times I'd be too nervous about a meeting and my IBS would flare up, and days when I was too depressed to get out of bed. Recovery is not a straight correlation and there are days I lost the battle and had to admit defeat, I'd usually try to do research from home, but there were days when even that was impossible.
After months of work, research and planning we had a date set, an event ready and the event promotion (Day 40) started, we had found the location, equipment, amenities, and extras. We had all the necessary licenses, legal documentation and risk assessments sorted. We had jump head first into a project that we knew very little about but we managed to organise and plan most if not all we needed. The last-minute organisation meant a very busy office the last day before the event, making signposts, admin, and double checks, packing up our equipment ready for the next day.
The last day was also filled with nervous butterflies and all the doubts and negative thoughts I'd had before and during this project started to re-emerge. I felt nauseous, tight-chested, sweaty and had a sense that something bad was going to happen lingering over me. We went through the checklist a final time and made arrangements for meeting times and equipment assembly the next day and then headed home.
One of the first tasks was location scouting, we narrowed down requirements and set about finding adequate spaces. I got in touch with the proprietors and set up a few meetings ( yes me! the person that has to amp herself up for any type of professional phonecall was ringing away!?), went to look around the spaces and sat in meetings and negotiations on hiring and rental prices. Finding the locations was one of the hardest aspects. An event can't happen if you don't have a space to host it. I felt lost in the beginning and actually resorted to looking at maps and ariel views of locations. I was in that state of "what on earth am I doing" ( you know, the one that's similar to trying to assemble furniture without any instructions).
I was going into the office to do work but rather than starting off in the office space, I was allowed to work in one of the meeting rooms and found this was easier for me to place phone calls, and correspond with external businesses, I later integrated into the main space. The team reassured me I was on the right path in my location search and as I became more comfortable around the team I started to use meeting rooms less and less until I only used them for actual meetings.
Before every meeting or location scouting outing, the anxiety decided to pop on by and came along for the ride. I was so nervous not only that my research would be a fail and the location completely unsuitable but also that I would put a foot wrong or say something that misrepresented the charity and that I could potentially destroy a contact and relationship between the charity and business before it even occurred. The events manager was more than accommodating with reassuring my worries and answering my questions. My worries eased with every location we visited until I was only focused on the location and its suitability.
There was a lot of research, files to be looked over, quotes to get, setting up an event plan, finding resources, amenities, and extras. Luckily for me, I was not working from scratch and the events team was incredibly resourceful already having a list of vendors, and relationships with businesses within the community. I did at times feel as though I was in a sea of information which was hard to swim through, and was grateful for all the help I received. In fact, I feel a lot of my time was spent at a computer researching one thing or another. In the beginning, when I was asked to research something, I wondered whether I would be able to take on the task, now I'll make it my mission to find an answer, or at least contribute some ideas and findings to the meeting or conversation.
There were a few brainstorming sessions and meetings, and after a while, I started to feel more confident and found some of my ideas were actually useful. Slowly but surely the pieces were coming together. I'd learned there's a priority order to worrying about certain matters, and some things (such as weather) cannot be controlled but provisions can be put into place. I'd also started to learn that planning an event isn't always straight forward, very often numerous pieces of the puzzle aren't fully formed until the very last minute or a piece can go missing at the last minute. For instance, a company may drop out, a problem may happen at the location, you may not get confirmation from someone until the day before or certain equipment may not arrive. It would be fine for a small scale event or party but for a busy/charity it could make or break.
It wasn't always smooth sailing and even after I had been volunteering for a while I would still have days where I would panic before heading out (see Day 34) or feel very uncomfortable and doubt myself. There are times when my anxiety was too gripping and I couldn't make it in, other times I'd be too nervous about a meeting and my IBS would flare up, and days when I was too depressed to get out of bed. Recovery is not a straight correlation and there are days I lost the battle and had to admit defeat, I'd usually try to do research from home, but there were days when even that was impossible.
After months of work, research and planning we had a date set, an event ready and the event promotion (Day 40) started, we had found the location, equipment, amenities, and extras. We had all the necessary licenses, legal documentation and risk assessments sorted. We had jump head first into a project that we knew very little about but we managed to organise and plan most if not all we needed. The last-minute organisation meant a very busy office the last day before the event, making signposts, admin, and double checks, packing up our equipment ready for the next day.
The last day was also filled with nervous butterflies and all the doubts and negative thoughts I'd had before and during this project started to re-emerge. I felt nauseous, tight-chested, sweaty and had a sense that something bad was going to happen lingering over me. We went through the checklist a final time and made arrangements for meeting times and equipment assembly the next day and then headed home.
I must disclose that there were some things that I was not in charge of nor had any part in organising, e.g. risk assessments, finances, and staff/volunteers, after all, I'm only a volunteer myself. The organising for the fundraising event was a group project and I'm very happy to have been a part of the team.
Anxiety After? 🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴⭕
The last day of planning was the day before the event, so even though everyone's hard work organising was theoretically finished, the nerves started to creep back up about the actual event. Anyone who has organised an event will tell you that your worrying will not cease until after the event has finished and everyone is safely home. I'm sweaty, nervous and feel sick, I can't bask in the glory and pride that my idea and project has been fully planned, and will come to fruition tomorrow, I doubt I will even sleep tonight. All I can do now is hope that all the vendors turn up, enough people come to help raise funds and the weather stays on our side, and that's just the bare minimum.
Update?
I learned so much during this challenge, I take my hat off to all and any event managers, organisers, wedding planners, you all do incredible work under such stress and difficult timelines, I'm utterly impressed. I'm so grateful to the whole team who taught and helped me through this whole process. I learned that I'm a lot more capable than I thought I was and gained more confidence in myself.
If you have any Challenge Ideas; Please comment down below and let me know.
Thanks for Reading
xo
Enjoy Day 41? Why not check out Day 40? Or browse the 100 Days Without Anxiety Challenges...
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