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How I destroyed my negative beliefs Hello friend, my name is Viktor and I conquered stuttering in the span of 2 years (I am not cured, stutter very mildly now , no longer think stuttering is a problem in my life). I am now **sharing my experience** in the hope that anyone else can benefit, as well. I go into details about my story in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stutter/comments/1iej02e/how_i_conquered_my_stutter_got_jacked_at_the_same/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). In this LOONG ASS POST, I am going to try to destroy the negative beliefs about stuttering that you may have. More specifically, you might think that: 1. “Curing stuttering is impossible.” 2. “Progress is slow, so I must be missing something.” 3. “Everybody treats me differently because of stuttering.” 4. “Stuttering is embarrassing.” Let’s unravel these negative thoughts, shall we? **\[“Curing stuttering is impossible.”\]** To start off, and answer the big question. Can your stutter be cured? What is the thinking that actually helps you? There is only 1 correct answer. Every stutterer should believe that their stutter can be at least majorly improved, if not cured. It is as simple as that. Any other thinking is a disservice to you and your potential. That’s because nobody on this planet knows for certain if your stammer can be cured before it actually happens. Logical right? No speech therapist can tell you what your natural “fluency limit” is. Nobody on the Internet can tell you that. I can’t tell you that. Everybody, however, knows that if you don’t put in effort & just surrender to the bad thoughts of hopelessness you won’t ever reach your true potential. "**When a man is left without hope, he has nothing. "** Because maybe your potential is to conquer stuttering like I did, speak with not an ounce of worry, talk about stuttering openly, live an amazing social life ... But you didn’t do that - you let yourself be convinced that it was impossible. EVERYBODY can do it, it just depends on the effort and time put in. That is it. **\[“Progress is slow, I must be missing something.”\]** I want to say that again. Time and effort is the missing piece of the puzzle. There is a quote I like to repeat to myself, when I feel these doubts. “**Do so much volume of work, that it becomes unreasonable not to succeed”.** (Credit to Alex Hormozi) **“It always takes longer that you expect, but shorter than you fear it is going to take.“** (Credit to me) No fast solution exists yet to conquer stuttering. And if you wait for one to be invented, you may spend your whole life waiting for one. What do you have to lose? **\[“Everybody treats me differently because of stuttering.”\]** This belief occupied my mind for the biggest part of my life. In school I used to read, my speech full of stuttering blocks, well into the later stages of high school. I still vividly remember the stone cold expression of my classmates looking back at me. You might imagine just how much that embarrassed me. My mind was torturing me with the thoughts of how miserable I am. All the possible opinions that others might have of me. All negative of course. I had a metaphorical list in my mind which I used to keep track of who knew my embarrassing secret. Did I have any proof that people did in fact treat me worse after hearing me stutter? No, not a single shred of evidence. But my mind kept generating stories. One fateful night, I gathered my courage and asked my close friend what he thought about my stutter. “Your stutter? I don’t notice it anymore.” - he replied. "What about any people who asked you about it? " - I said. “Hmmm, I mean George asked me one time if you had speech anxiety. Nobody else, though.” - he answered. “Oh?” - I gasped. I was very surprised to say the least. This belief that was holding me back got destroyed with just one conversation. The next day, when I had to read, knowing that at least one other person knew of my troubles, I had a noticeable improvement. Or just a few months ago, when I went public with my YouTube channel and talked about it openly in school and on social media, my teacher of 5 years said to me “Oh, I did not know you had a stutter!”. By that point I had asked many other people about it, cementing the destruction of this belief. But a person, who knew me for so much time, to say that she never did know?! WOW! That is when I knew I needed to make a post on this topic! In reality, the time you spend thinking about any other particular person is roughly the time they spend thinking about you. In plain words, not so much if they aren’t close to you. So, forget about steaming in your own misery and ask the closest friend you have about stuttering TODAY. Send him a message or call him right now. It is the only way that you will gain any benefit and destroy this belief. Just thinking positively won’t work. Put the story into one of the replies to this thread. **\[“Stuttering is embarrassing.”\]** Moreover, I believe the shame that was linked to the previous negative belief isn’t really your fault. It think it is due because from a young age we are put into the education system. There, in the first few grades, you learn the alphabet, start reading aloud and have your first few presentations. But after a while, you are expected to speak fluently. And seeing how you have stuttering, you are aren’t capable of that yet. You haven’t put in the effort and time required and so, you fall behind. This making you different from your class mates and you start feeling embarrassed. That association between your speaking and embarrassment stays with you until you break it. I believe most stutterers have their worst experiences because of that in school. And people there aren’t mature yet and don’t know how to reach correctly to it. They make fun of it, but talk to anyone older that a middle scholar and you will see what I mean. Now that we know why you are embarrassed, what do we do about it? You do the opposite of what you have been doing. You be 10x as open and social about stuttering from this day forward. You talk to random strangers every day, you introduce yourself first (This is one of the habits I will talk about in a later post). After all, you probably are never going to see them again, what is the downside even if you stutter? You go to more social events. You organize one yourself. What is stopping you from setting up a movie night with your close mates this weekend? But you already know this - by hiding from other people you are deepening the problem. Stuttering feeds on the shame and secrecy you provide it. The more you are trying to hide your problem - the more it worsens. The more you want not to stutter, the more you stutter. It is that simple. I don’t know anyone who has dealt with their stutter while also remaining secretive about it. You aren’t going to be different. After a while of exposing yourself, stuttering will become a topic that you can always talk about or even joke about. It wouldn’t be taboo. By that point, I believe that you will have drastically improved your fluency, as well . You will even start forgetting why you worried so much in the first place about it. Believe me. (cheeky smile) **TLDR:** * Improving stuttering can ALWAYS be done * It takes longer than expected, but less than you fear * You judge your stuttering harshly * Socializing and being more open about stammering defeat the shame / embarrassment (This text is adapted from a script of a YouTube Video I made.)