Recording Myself

“Why am I getting worse with each attempt? I should be getting better.” I thought to myself as I sat in my living room, recording myself doing a 2-minute speech for a job application and just finished my 8th attempt. I knew what I wanted to say, so I thought it would only take a maximum of three attempts.

After each attempt, I would watch the recording. In the first 4 attempts, I kept stumbling over my own words. This was annoying because when I attempted to do it without recording, I could do it fine.

By the 5th attempt, I had stopped stumbling over my own words. But now, I was talking more like a robot, and not like the new AI voice – I mean, the robotic monotone voices of 10 years ago.

So for the next few attempts, I tried to fix it by speaking with happy energy. But within 10 seconds, I would go back to the robot voice.

And with every attempt, I was getting more annoyed.

By my 8th attempt, I gave up.

I didn’t have time to redo the recordings later – the deadline was in a few hours and I had things I needed to get done. I knew my best attempts were the 5th and 6th. I relistened to them both and decided to submit the 6th.

I wasn’t happy with the recording, but I was happy not to have to try to record it again.

I watch people record themselves on YouTube and never appreciate how difficult it must be to record yourself doing a speech.

I can never appreciate how hard something is until I try it myself.