How to avoid and eliminate crutches when speaking in public?

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In this article I want to tell you about a very common problem in people who communicate orally: crutches. What are they, why do they occur and how can we correct them? Read on to learn more.

What are crutches?

When we have difficulty walking we use a support; whether it is a cane, a crutch or we take someone's arm. We need that support to walk, even if we walk slowly and awkwardly. Crutches in public speaking are repetitive words that we use to connect ideas. When we are nervous, do not know what to say or do not have a definite idea, we resort to crutches.

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Why do they occur?

Crutches have several causes: nervousness, insecurity, little or no mastery of the subject, reduced vocabulary. Crutches are unnecessary for those who listen to us, in fact they can be annoying, and they also show insecurity and lack of professionalism. But what is true is that they are very relevant for us since they are a product of our difficulty to speak fluently and we rely on them to continue speaking, clumsily and slowly? yes, but, rather than stop speaking we prefer to use crutches.

There is an infinite number of crutches. Some are more common than others and vary according to the person, even depending on the region where we live. Beyond that, the most common ones are:

• Esteeemm
• Ehhh
• Right?
• Y....
• right?
• So
• Well then
• Finally.
• Do I make myself clear?
• You do?
• You see
• I mean...
• Let's see.
• Is that understood?
• Ok.
• I really do.
• Really
• Literally
• Really
• They also occur in suspension of final or initial syllables. For example: "She went to the house, didn't she? Andyyyy, I'm looking for the clothes that I had to take aaaaaaa to the hospital".

(Suspended syllables will be discussed on another occasion).

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How do we eliminate them?

In order to overcome the use of crutches and speak fluently, it is necessary to recognize that we have this problem, become aware of it and find a way to overcome it. At the same time, it is necessary to identify and define which crutches we use most frequently. An ideal way to do this is to record ourselves, either on video or audio. This will allow us to evaluate ourselves and be aware of the magnitude of the failure.

I recommend the following:

• Record yourself, either on audio or video. By recording ourselves, we become aware of the crutches we use and the unpleasantness of using them.

• Apply pauses when speaking. Instead of saying. "Well, ehhh, I went to the market aaaa buy". Say it like this: "Well..., I went to the market... to buy".

• A very practical and useful way to increase your vocabulary and lexicon is to learn as many connectors as possible and replace crutches with them. Instead of them, use connectors such as: "in addition", "likewise", "however", "but", "in short", "so that". (But be careful not to repeat them so much that they also end up being crutches).

• Repeat the last word of the previous sentence. "Definitely the prices in that market are very expensive." "They are very expensive, seriously, notice that a kilo of sugar costs..."

• Invite the listener to participate in the conversation or speech. When you do not finish linking two ideas, pause and ask the audience something that invites them to participate. Before using the crutch ask, "How are we doing so far, any questions?", "Shall we continue?", "If it's okay with you, I'll take questions at the end". That gets your audience involved and allows you to hide the forgetfulness you had at the time.

• **Believe in yourself **. nThink positive. Convince yourself that you are a great communicator and that you do it well. That you speak fluently and without discomfort. That drives you to improve.

• The best way to avoid crutches is to learn our speech well and practice it a lot. The more confident we are in our speech, the fewer crutches we will have. And by practicing and recording ourselves, we will see the evolution.

For me it was a real pleasure to present you this guide. I hope it will be very useful for you. Remember that you can find me on my social networks as @ gsbilbao.

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Original G. S. Bilbao