Um, ah, uh!

It's a strange title for a post, but if you only knew how many times a day you say one of these words, you would be a). horrified and b). staggered. Even some professional broadcasters are guilty of it; they should definitely know better. But what are these words? They're called fillers, filled pauses, or even disfluencies. They also go along with "like", "you know", "I mean", "basically", and "literally", all of which are actual words used without their full meaning. They are speech patterns often used by people to gather their thoughts when they are not quite sure what they are going to say. Claude calls them 'verbal tics or hedges'.

Most people aren't even aware that they use them, let alone that they use them many times a day. I've trained myself not to use them, but I'm also aware when I do. Anybody reading this can, and should, do the same. It's not that difficult. Record yourself speaking, practicing for a speech, or having a conversation with a friend. If the latter, tell them what you are doing and why, so they don't think it's weird. Then get a piece of paper and a pen, and listen to the recording, making a note of how many times you used each filler word. Listen to it again, and check that you got the counts right. Then make another recording. What is interesting about this exercise is that you will now hear yourself using those words, and you probably won't use them as often. Keep on with this exercise until you record something where you can't hear a single usage.

By this point, you're probably asking yourself why is this important. When you don't use filler words, you will sound more professional, competent, and confident. It also means that when you are trying to persuade somebody to do something, oh, I don't know, buy a piece of your art, your credibility and persuasiveness go way up.

#artsales #motivation