No More Non-Words

You always want to sound eloquent and professional when you communicate.  But umms and uhhs keep on sneaking into your speech!  Nothing can kill your perceived confidence and credibility like non-words.  Non-words such as ah, like, you know, so, and umm make you sound unprepared and unprofessional.  To eliminate the use of non-words, take the following steps.

  1. Pause and breathe.  Whenever you tend to use a non-word, pause and breathe instead.  This will calm you down and give you time to consider what you will say next instead of the non-word.
  2. Make eye contact.  After you’ve paused, look at someone and direct your next statement to them.  Focusing your attention on one person will help your speech be focused too.
  3. Practice with a friend or colleague.  If you are still having trouble eliminating non-words, try having a friend or colleague clap each time you say a non-word.  This will make you aware of how often you use non-words, and will help you realize when you need to take more pauses.

To make sure non-words will no longer undermine your credibility, you need to pause, breathe, and make eye-contact.  These steps will help you eliminate those non-words!

 

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