Fillers or Crutch Words

Fillers/ Crutch words are useless words and sounds that continuously creeping into people’s speech.
Fillers words range from repetitious sounds, such as “uh”, “um”, “like” and “ahhh” and more. They also include favourite catch words and phrases, such as; “you know”, “anyway”, “just”, “all right” and “like”.

The problem with using fillers such as these when you speak is that they distract your listener. Fillers weaken our phrases.

The Benefits of Eliminating Fillers

Eliminating crutch words is one of the fastest ways to improve you as a speaker. As your speech fillers decrease, your listeners will: form a better impression of you as you speak and be able to easily digest what you say.

Your audience will be better able to focus on the message you’re communicating, rather than being distracted by the way you’re expressing yourself.

Not only does it display confidence to your audience, but also you become easier to understand as your message gets across.

Here’s what to do to reduce the use of crutch words:

The best way to find what your filler words are is to have some one record you the next time you speak. Then have a watch…you will be able to see what your crutch words or statements are.

Ahhh, ummm, So then, But etc. You may find out that you have more than 1 crutch word. Knowing what your crutch word(s) are is the first step to removing them from your speech.

Now that you are aware of them be intentional about removing them when you talk. A few ways to do that is to;

i) Pause every time you are about to say your crutch word
ii) Breathe in before your crutch word escapes your mouth.

Ideally you want to replace your crutch word, with one of the two strategies above.

It’s time to say good bye to crutch words for good.

#‎StayAmazing

Karen D#