New speakers often find themselves hitting a wall in their speaking. They start attending Toastmasters club meetings or attend a speaking workshop and see improvements, but at some point they will hit a wall and stop improving as quickly as they did early on in the learning process. Though a slowing of improvement is to be expected as you gain speaking experience, I want to share with you one thing you can do to break through the improvement doldrums and kick your speaking into high gear.

In Toastmasters during the first few months of the year, many clubs are getting their speakers ready for the International Speech contest. The International Speech contest is the only contest that Toastmasters requires all of their districts to perform and it gives speakers the opportunity to compete for the title World Champion of Public Speaking. Through six grueling levels of competition, speakers are challenged to deliver their best five to seven minute speeches. Only the best speakers make it to the final competition where speakers from all over the world compete at the International Toastmasters Convention. One key to breaking through the wall of improvement is to compete against your peers and enroll in the contest.

For the first year that I was in Toastmasters, I didn’t compete. I was happy to give my speeches, perform a role, and slowly move up the improvement ladder. However, at some point I got stuck and I didn’t know what to do in order to get unstuck until I attended a District 40 Spring Convention. There I saw Darren LaCroix, the 2001 World Champion of Public Speaking and got to watch my first district level speech competition. After seeing Darren’s keynote and watching the competitors, I knew that competing was something that I had to do if I wanted to get better as a speaker.

So the next year, I prepared my speech, practiced, and then won my club contest. I then went to the area contest and got eliminated. So what did I do next? I didn’t give up at that point and vowed to continue to improve my speaking and my speech writing skills so that this year I would be able to compete at a higher level. Competition forced me to be devoted to writing, practicing, getting feedback, and finding resources that helped me improve my speaking.

That is the magic of the International Speech contest for improving speakers. The level of the competition continues to get better every year, so it encourages speakers to get better as well if they want to succeed. You can’t float though the competition. A speaker has to write, practice, get feedback, write, and practice more at every level in the competition in order to be successful. This makes you improve as a speaker and forces your to break through the wall of improvement and become a much better speaker.

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