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allies on your journey. If your existing peer to see you succeed. Tap into them! Create a
group is not living lifestyles that you want to speech brainstorm session with other members

emulate in your health journey, seek out some of your club or pair up with an accountability
sort of club that will. Facebook Groups, Meetup partner. Your club-mates want to see you
and other websites can help you find groups succeed, so talk with them and find ways to
of people who are on a similar journey – or support each other on your journey.

better yet – already living a lifestyle you want
for yourself. Be S.M.A.R.T.!
In your Toastmaster’s life, this could take Whatever your goals are, be sure

many forms depending on what you identify they are SMART! You may already be
as the primary culprit holding you back. If familiar with the SMART acronym,
you have difficulty finding time to write your but I’ll give it to you here just to be
speeches, schedule the time in your calendar. annoying. Each of these apply to both
If you find yourself getting distracted when your overall goal “Lose 20 lbs by Memorial Day”

you are trying to write a speech, find ways to or “Complete a TM path by Dececember 31” as
remove the distractions. This could be finding well as each step along the path to your overall
a quiet spot in your home away from common goal “Do two pushups per day” or “Spend five

distractions. Maybe you can go to a library or minutes brainstorming on speech ideas.” Your
coffee shop? Perhaps it’s the internet or your goals must be:
phone that distracts you. Leave your phone in pecific: You must be very specific about
another room. Disconnect the internet or use Swhat you want to accomplish and write it
a browser extension to down. An example of a bad goal would be to

block social media and “exercise more”. A specific example would be
other websites that (remembering to start small): “Do two pushups
call to you. per day while waiting for my coffee to brew.”

One great benefit easurable: Create a way to measure
of Toastmasters is Msuccess. Otherwise, how will you know if
that it comes with you are making progress? In the above examples,
a built-in peer you can easily determine if you did two pushups
network of or if you spent 5 minutes brainstorming.

people who chievable: Make sure it’s something you can
have similar Aactually accomplish. If your goal was set at
goals and doing 100 pushups per day and you currently

also want do zero, that’s a tough hill to climb. If you gave

VOICES! | NOVEMBER 2022 9