Stop Accepting Your Stutter and Start Improving

Is acceptance of stuttering bad? Absolutely not — because accepting that you have a stutter takes a lot of courage. Then which aspect of acceptance is wrong? Accepting that stuttering is a way of life is wrong. Am I confusing? Okay, let me walk you through my understanding.

Stuttering is not a way of life

Once, I had a discussion with one of my students. He said that he never accepted stuttering, which kept the “instinct of finding solutions” alive in him — eventually triggering a quest for opportunities to improve his speech. Had he accepted stuttering, he might have remained a stutterer all his life because acceptance leads to coexistence with stuttering. Also, acceptance inhibits the opportunity to explore. So, if you ask me whether acceptance is good, I’d say yes — but dwelling in it and not trying to improve is not a solution. Once a person accepts stuttering as a way of life, he stops trying, and this prevents him from exploring opportunities to improve. What if there was a chance to improve speech, and the person was completely oblivious to it just because he accepted stuttering? “Not trying” and “I could have tried a bit harder” are two of the biggest regrets a person can experience. I’ve seen many people tell their speech therapists, “If only I had found this method a few years earlier, I would have had a fluent life much sooner.” That’s why I believe not accepting stuttering keeps the fire alive — leading to faster discovery of solutions than those who accept stuttering as permanent.

Embrace change

At the end of the day, everyone wants to become a better person. To become better, we must transform — and change is never easy. Most of us are scared of change because it’s uncomfortable, it makes us vulnerable, and it forces us to question ourselves. But once you embrace change, you’ll be amazed at what you discover. Always strive to improve, because there is always room for growth. Stuttering does not need to be a way of life for virtually anyone. Data change. New methods are found. The neuroscience method described in Lee Lovett’s book Stuttering & Anxiety Self-Cures and further developed through the World Stop Stuttering Association (WSSA) programs truly work. WSSA is the world’s only community of ex-stutterers and those fast becoming ex-stutterers. You owe it to yourself to give it a try.