I‘m an apprentice, have been for half a year with two more to go. I love this work, but these two things are the worst!

I have social anxiety. fortunately it‘s not crippling and when socializing I‘m usually too distracted to be anxious anyway. but especially when I need to stand on stage talking into a microphone until my coworker is satisfied with the signal is terrible. I hate hearing my voice from the outside. this will probably get better, I‘m a trans guy and haven‘t started testosterone yet, so once I do and my voice gets lower this issue will most likely resolve. but that doesn‘t solve the problem of what to say. „check one two“ is fine for a quick check, but do I just keep repeating it if it takes longer? do I tell jokes? tongue twisters? some random story? use the chance to spit out facts about my current hyperfixation? so far I‘ve usually only talked about how I don‘t know what to talk about.

going on stage during showtime is really stressful too. I keep reminding myself „all you need to do is move this mic to this position“ or whatever my task is. „it‘ll be alright.“ and it is allright. I did just fine every time so far. but I just can‘t enter the stage when the audience is present without feeling awkward and uncomfortable. if I fail or make a mistake, everybody‘s there to watch. it will happen, it probably won‘t be a big deal, things go wrong, that‘s just the way it is and even if (and that‘s a big if) somebody is mad at me it‘ll be okay soon enough. my coworkers are great and not the kind of people to hold a grudge for making mistakes. but it still gives me anxiety.

so how did you get over these awkward and uncomfortable things? does it get better as you get used to it?