# How did I start working on my stuttering?

By [Craig Coffee](/craig-coffee)

I started with a small difference. When somebody approached me, I felt two inches tall. When I approached them, my speech was a little better. I still stuttered badly. But when you're in that kind of pain, you'll take something that's slightly better.

I was about 14. After the time when I was crying in my parents' driveway, I challenged myself to talk to one new person per day. I didn't call it the Once-a-Day Challenge then. That is the name I use for it now.

## What could I actually do at 14?

If I was out at a store with my parents, I could ask an employee a question. At school, I could speak to a teacher or another school employee I didn't know. Once I could drive, there were more opportunities to go somewhere and do it.

Those ordinary places mattered. A grocery store. Target. Someone who worked there. I was practicing approaching respectfully, using my voice and getting into an exchange. Taking the approach was part of the work, and so was the talking after it.

## Here is the sort of exchange I mean

In a later grocery-store recording, I walked in and saw a man looking at cookies. I commented that if they were on sale, I was in trouble. I talked about how I used to eat a lot of junk food and asked, “how about you?”

He told me he was diabetic and couldn't touch it. “But you still look at it,” I said. “Smart.”

That was a little conversation about what was in front of us. I hadn't worked out his answer beforehand. He said something, and I could respond to that. Then the exchange was over. It is one of the examples I use to show [how I practiced](/daily-stuttering-practice).

## The next words were part of what I had to learn

For years, another person could be talking while I was busy working out my response. What would I have to say? Which words could I get out? Which ones would I try to get around? There was very little of my attention left for what they were actually telling me.

So asking the first question wasn't the whole job. I had to learn [to listen](/listening-without-monitoring-your-speech) and let the answer give me something to respond to. I wanted to be in the conversation. That took practice because I was so used to planning it in my head.

I failed a lot of times. Someone would say something, and I wasn't quick enough. Or I blocked. Learning to speak more spontaneously meant letting go of some control while I still felt nervous. I did that work gradually.

## There was work before and after the conversation too

I also worked on what I said to myself. I had years of being hard on myself after difficult speech. My early phrase was, “It's too early in the day to hate yourself.” Later, I learned to give an actual small success some room in my head too.

[The way I prepared](/confidence-before-speaking), the thoughts I carried, the things I read and the conversations themselves all became part of the work. I would take an idea into a classroom, a job, a phone call or a social situation, see what happened, and keep refining it.

That is where my account begins: one difference I could notice, one person I could approach, and a lot still to learn. I'm sharing what worked for me because I would have loved that explanation when I was struggling. I don't know whether another person's experience will be the same. [The fuller approach](/craig-coffee-approach) explains the other parts of my own work.

## Related answers

- [Stuttering or stammering: what do I mean?](/stuttering-vs-stammering)
- [What happened when my practice did not work?](/when-stuttering-practice-goes-badly)

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