Secrets to a Successful Toastmaster Year

How was your last Toastmasters year? Were you able to achieve the goals you set for yourself?

Let me give you some tips and tricks I used to achieve and exceed my goals which made a difference in my past year as a Toastmaster and gave me the opportunity to be one of the 6 speakers in the New York Spring Conference 2017 (Page 20).

    • Write down your goals and set dates to achieve them. Would we ever submit assignments if our teachers didn’t give us deadlines? Turn your inner critic to an inner coach and use the inner critic to guide you to keep to your promises to yourself.
    • Have a mentor/coach. It always helps to have a coach/mentor to guide you. All successful people constantly learn.
    • Visit other clubs and have maximum face time outside your club – get to know people and network with them in Toastmasters settings. The more doors you knock give you a better chance of having more doors being opened for you. Your potential is too big to be confined to your club alone.

    • Think of your travel time as a university on wheels. Commit your travel time to continuous education. Time is valuable. A modern day human being will be on commute at least 7 years of his adult life. We can be bitter and grumble until we reach our destination or we can invest on learning new things. See if you can share an Audible account with friends, so that you can learn on the go.
      • Start writing a book. It’s a smart move. Ideas come and go without your notice, but when you document it; it becomes your own philosophy. This causes you to gain confidence in case you have to prep a speech in a very short time period. I started writing down my ideas, which ended up as a book that I published last June at the New York Toastmasters convention 2017.
    • Commit to speak even if you are scared. This is the mantra I used when I joined Toastmasters. Don’t we all like to see others keeping commitments to us? The real beauty is when you start keeping commitments to yourself. This creates eustress (positive stress) to keep up. This works for speeches too.
    • Push yourself off the cliff (commit to things you thought you cannot rise up to). We can never grow in a comfort zone. Innovation was never born in the midst of abundance, but among limitations and struggle. Discomfort is the place we all grow and blossom. Push yourself to an uncomfortable zone. Take responsibilities you thought you cannot handle, take leadership roles week after week in Toastmasters meetings and see yourself growing before your own eyes.
    • Ask! Ask! Ask! When we were an infant, we cried and asked for milk. As a child we knew what we wanted exactly and we were not afraid to ask for it. As we grew, society taught us to be content and not to step on other people’s toes. We learned to seek approval and limit ourselves. This makes all adults deteriorated children. We stop asking. We stop striving. Winning only comes to a person who asks. You are a winner. So Ask! Ask! Ask!
    • Take action on your thoughts as soon as possible before you lose sight of them– ideas come and go like thieves. It may be a speech topic or an idea to change tracks in your career. Take some action on it before it leaves you. Small hunches or gut feelings that come our way may be the real breakthroughs or revelations in our lives. If it’s a speech topic just take out your phone and type it in.
  • Have a mastermind group – these are groups of accountability partners who will help each other to keep to their commitments. Read about how and what you can achieve. I will cover this in my next blog.

I am sure that my tips will help you to achieve your goals. The points mentioned above transformed me from a beginner in public speaking in 2015 to one of 6 speakers in New York Toastmasters conference 2017 within 2.5 years. Feel free to reach me at RLCorpConsulting@gmail.com if you’d like me to deliver a speech/workshop at your club or if you need a hand to gain confidence. I’m not a guru, but a work in progress, who is hungry to learn more. Just like you.

 

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