One quick and easy way to improve the clarity of your speech as well as your vocabulary is to talk more slowly. The slower you talk the more time you’ll have to think about the next thing you’re about to say. It will also help you to project your voice more and you’ll instantly sound clearer, deeper and more confident.
Use CBT and Become Socially Bulletproof However, if you’re in your own head and worrying about stuttering then you’ll find this hard to do as you naturally speak more quickly when you’re nervous. Ironically, it’s worrying about getting a stutter that will give you a stutter. So how do you get out of your own head enough to slow down and speak more confidently? As we discussed at the start of this book, in cognitive behavioural therapy, patients are told to use what is known as ‘hypothesis testing’. Here you test the results of doing whatever it is you’re anxious about in the hope that you find your concerns are unfounded. Interestingly though, it may actually be more useful if you find that you do say something stupid or stutter outrageously. The reason for that is that you’ll this way test the worst-case scenario and learn in the process that there’s nothing to be worried about. When teaching gymnasts to backflip on a crash mat,
