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As an introvert, the more you do these people/client facing tasks, the easier it gets. You will get better at the soft skills. Right now it's like you are doing something new / for the first time each time which is a massive hit on your nervous system. Once you flow more, the overhead energy cost dramatically drops. You will still need to manage your energy, but much less. I'm an introvert who couldn't even answer a phone due to fear, and have spent 7 years successfully in Consulting managing C suite and senior clients, and teams up to 10 people. It's been a career journey to work out how to operate in corporate settings. Constantly trying and growing is the way forward.
As a practical step, learn some standard questions / frameworks you can apply. For example, first time meeting a client, have your intro ready, where you think you fit in the project etc Have some specific questions ready about the goals, objectives or usual patterns you see in this type of work. Or if you're running a workshop, you'll know your content but you need to learn techniques to make the workshop "work - roundtables, ideation running, pausing for summaries and replay backs etc. There are some great books and online resources that give you specific techniques.
Read books like the Coaching Habit (Michael Bungay) which I found are really good soft skill development tools which you can extend to your general conversation skills, because driving conversations is not something that is easy for an introvert! I've found many self help books useful - I know they get a bad rep, but they tell me how people and social settings works, and more importantly they confirm my anxieties are actually felt by most other people to varying degrees, so they give me licence to be more confident.
As an introvert, I've found hard/technical skills easy to develop. Soft skills take practice. Learn some frameworks, tips and techniques, and then experiment daily what works for you and your style. You might shit bricks when you have to present to 6 people, but it's not so bad after you've done it 20 times or if you presented to 80 people last week. Be brave, take risks, try, improve.
What a thoughtful reply. Thank you.
In the long run, being an introvert doing extrovert work will drain you. But I'm sure people do it at anyway.
Pro
Extrovert in the streets introvert in the sheets
I get satisfaction out of the extrovert things, but a little goes a long way.
Most of the working day is not directly client-facing, so I haven't been drained. That's at least my experience, maybe some consultants spend most of the time with clients(?)