A few weeks ago I went to my first Toastmasters meeting. Well, I think I attended Toastmasters for kids when I was little because my parents forced me to, but it was a vague memory. Anyway, the only reason I went the other day was that my friend told me if there’s one thing he could recommend to boost self esteem, it would be to participate in Toastmasters. He did Toastmasters for 1-2 months, and it drastically improved his public speaking and overall confidence. I never really thought about specifically working on improving public speaking in this manner, but ever since I’ve been trying to do all the things that I’m scared of I thought “why not”.

My First Toastmasters Review

So I walked into my first meeting (20 minutes late knowing me) and suddenly my whole body went into a state of slight panic. Someone was in the middle of her speech when I arrived, and amidst the audience was a bunch of adults paying close attention to the speaker. And it was then when I fully realized what I was getting into. I guess I didn’t really think about how scary this was going to be until actually being in the environment. I sat in the back hoping I wouldn’t be called on on my first day of being there. The group had systems in place where one person would hold up a green card at the 1-minute time mark, a yellow card at the 1 minute 30 mark, and a red card at the 2-minute mark. They even rang a bell every time you said filler words like “umm” (and that was one of my weak factors as I noticed I say filler words all the time).

Snuck in a quick picture

I listened to each speech with amazement as many of the members delivered very well, even though English was not their first language. Despite it all they were talking the challenge head-on without fear. When the prepared speeches were over, they actually went into a section of “Table Topics” in which people had to improvise their speeches. The leaders mentioned that everyone, even the guests, had to participate. They asked for my name, and suddenly I felt my chest pain and worry increase as I knew I would have to go up at one point or another.

My Improvised Speech

When it got to me they asked the topic: “What do I prioritize on Saturdays”? I ended up saying that my priorities – not just on Saturdays but every day – were around self improvement and facing my fears head on. I briefly discussed my fear of public speaking and how I was dealing with anxiety, and I could feel my voice shaking a little bit. My head felt hazy, and I just wanted everything to be over with.

I said “umm” a few times, but as he started to press the bell during my speech, I caught myself from then on. But because of this I ended up pausing a lot, which created more fear because I thought I was boring everyone with these gaps in speaking. I could feel myself blanking out having nothing to say, and I just thought “wow, this speech is not going well”. It was weird, because this topic was one I felt elaborate on for ages. But because of my nerves I just couldn’t think.

The Aftermath

When I sat back down, I beat myself up a little bit thinking I could have done better, but I stopped my train of thought as I realized I took a big step in just attending Toastmasters on a Saturday morning when I really didn’t have to. I switched that negative feeling to pride.

But the next thought really had me thinking. I realized that if I were in the audience watching myself on stage, I would have never seen a YouTuber who sings and dances in music videos, traveler for 2 years, who quit her job and blogs and makes Instagram videos teaching people how to make passive income.

The YouTube version of me…

I realize that I sort of hide behind a camera every time I post videos (and write pieces), as I can redo them over and over again if I messed up. I’m not put on the spot, which makes it easier to be myself. People think I’m brave with all the content creation I do, so noticing this mismatch between public speaking Sharon and YouTube Sharon just made me feel like I had work to do. I want to get over this hump so I can fully express myself, whether I’m behind a camera or speaking in person.

On that stage, I was back to this timid Asian girl that most people may see if they saw me in a work setting or at a cafe studying. It kind of pissed me off that I essentially let fear mask who I felt I really was.

I must say though, a few friends told me they never noticed that I would struggle in public speaking settings or conversational settings. They never thought I was awkward or anxious and thought I was pretty social. It made me wonder if I let my mind create stories that I am bad at these areas or if I just blow up my fear and let myself believe that I should be anxious.

I honestly think I could be a better speaker or performer if I would just believe I was good at those skills rather than fear these situations. I can tell that fear actually makes me worse in my performance. That day, I could have crafted an amazing story about facing fear head on, about how I’ve been doing things like the 100-day Instagram challenge, daily meditations, and overall taking action to change a fear mindset to a confident mindset. I could have dived into how I was going to train my brain to conquer anything, and that if I did so I would make drastic improvements in my self development.

After my speech, one of the leaders told me there’s nothing to be scared of because we’re all going to die anyway (so true). Another guy actually came up to me and told me I did great. I wouldn’t even allow myself to believe it and thought he was just being nice. But maybe I wasn’t AS bad as I thought, and maybe I just need to practice more. I actually used less than 5 filler words whereas a lot of people used 10 or more. I don’t know if that means I did alright, but I’ll pretend like it is proof that I was decent.

Summary

I was overcome with many thoughts and feelings after this first experience. Seeing people kill it on stage (even though English was not their first language) was awesome to see. They were having a fun time at these Toastmasters meetings! Seeing the difference between YouTuber and blogger Sharon versus scared, timid Sharon was an eye opener for me as it was one example of how fear really impacted my life. I just knew that without that fear I could have said so much more on the topic and owned the stage. And observing my extreme worry before the speech and during the speech just pushed me even further to make more changes in my life.

I saw something on my Instagram feed about committing vs just trying. Saying that “I’ve tried everything” to battle anxiety is just not enough. You have to commit to change. So in either mid December or January I plan to sign up for Toastmasters and commit to at least 1-2 months of public speaking. I am working on a course with my friend so I can’t start earlier. But anyway, attending this meeting was super eye opening for me, and though it’s scary, I feel like I could create drastic improvements in myself if I committed to this activity. Especially seeing others own the stage like that, it gives me hope that I can do the same without fear.

Let me know what you think and if you’ve done Toastmasters in the comments below!