Summer Resolutions

It’s the first week of July, half-past 2013. Do you know where your resolutions are?

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to ballroom dance. I forgot about that until just now. I’ll have to come back to it. I also resolved to work on writing and telling true inspirational stories. Toward the second goal, in addition to launching this blog, I joined the Toastmasters Club at my office building. This is a club for public speaking. I recently gave my second “prepared” speech to the group.

It’s not that public speaking is something I haven’t done before. I have addressed crowds of several hundred people on many occasions. But sometimes I find it nerve-wracking and sometimes I find it effortless and the difference has to do with how often I speak in front of groups. So one of my goals for this year was to make a habit of it.

At my first meeting of the Toastmasters a few months ago, I was struck by how structured it was. Our club meets every other Wednesday over a lunch hour. At each meeting, two or three people give a scheduled, 5-7 minute prepared speech. A member of the group times each speaker, using a lamp with three colored bulbs in a row — green, yellow and red, to signal how much time the speaker has left. Another Toastmaster counts the grammatical mistakes and another person does an evaluation for each speaker. In addition to the prepared speeches, each meeting includes table-topics which are prompts for spontaneous two-minute talks. Each meeting also has a theme for the day and a word of the day, which speakers are encouraged to incorporate.

I spent my first several meetings observing this process, avoiding any chance to speak and deciding I didn’t like this at all.

Did you hear the table topic I got? It was too weird. I can’t believe they actually tally up the ‘ums’ at the end of the meeting. How annoying. And that timer lamp is the worst. The Timekeeper reports the exact minutes for each person, not just the prepared speeches. And then someone else evaluates the whole meeting, even the evaluators. It’s a bit much. I really don’t know if this is for me, I said later to anybody who would listen. It’s a cult. And the schedule is a bother. I have other places to be at lunch.

Fortunately, even though this was my first Toastmaster’s experience, I have actually been here before. I mean, deciding to try something new and then listing all the reasons not to. There is a part of your mind that is an expert excuse maker and it can be very manipulative. That voice will make every complaint sound legit, when it’s really just the sound of you getting in your own way, to avoid a bit of effort or risk. But you can outsmart your excuse-making self. You can set up a commitment device from the get-go that will hold your goal steady until you get past this phase. In my case, I paid membership dues for several months and right away set a date to give my first prepared speech.

When you join Toastmasters, you get a handbook with 10 speech ‘projects’, suggestions for prepared speeches that you can give when you are ready. At the end of completing all ten, you get a certificate. Each speech has a focus such as body language, organization or using visual aides. The first one is the Ice Breaker, and the job of the speech is to introduce yourself.

On May 1, I was one of three people giving prepared speeches to a crowd of about 20 members. I told a story about my family of origin (which I then used as an early blog post) as a way of explaining where I was from. Though I knew the story by heart, I practiced it several times at home in the days before. The audience ate it up. Fellow Toastmasters wrote their reviews on little slips of paper and a few stood up to give their feedback. The Grammarian said he was so into my story that he forgot to count his ums. The Timekeeper said I could have talked all day. I was pumped. I wondered if this was beginner’s luck and right away scheduled my second speech for June.

On the day of my second speech, the theme of the meeting was summer resolutions. I hadn’t thought about summer this way before, but it’s a time for setting goals, too — things like working toward a fitness target, completing a household project or maybe just savoring every day. I like the idea of breaking a big goal down to the bit that you can accomplish in a season. Summer is also a chance to take a look back at the first half of the year and recalibrate. I recently began a daily meditation practice, something that wasn’t on my radar in January. I hope to be able to meditate in full lotus for ten minutes by the end of the summer. At the moment, the meditation class fits my schedule more readily than ballroom dancing, which will have to wait. As for the public speaking goal, that one seems to have stuck.

For my second prepared speech, I shared a story that I have written about on this blog, about going from Wisconsin to Harvard. This one I hadn’t practiced as much and I learned a valuable lesson. When I don’t practice the speech, I over-talk the first-half, and wind up hurrying through the conclusion when I see the red timer light go on. I also use filler-words more. I said ‘um’ six times in nine minutes and had one other grammatical correction. Despite this, the comments were once again very encouraging. One seasoned Toastmaster began her note by saying, “Amy you have quite the gift.” She recommended that I ask for more time at the start, rather than cutting material.

I made a mental note of the helpful criticisms, and then immediately tossed out the little papers they were written on. No need to dwell.

That last note I pinned to a bulletin board near my office computer, where I would see it often. It’s possible this reviewer was just being nice or that she says that kind of thing to everybody. But, no matter. I have decided to add one more resolution to the pile, and I recommend it to anyone. That is to believe the nice things people say.

When it was time to decide about continuing my Toastmasters membership, I noticed I was all out of excuses. So, I rejoined for another six months. I haven’t yet scheduled my third prepared speech, but I hope to do so in July. And now that I am benefiting from the process, I figure I might as well do my part. So, yes, at our next meeting, it’ll be me in charge of the timer lamp.

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Story by Amy Ambrose, Amy@faceyourtalent.com