# What did comparing my speech with other people do to my confidence?

By [Craig Coffee](/craig-coffee)

The compare game's a bad game. I used to play it, and it destroyed me.

When I compared my speech with someone else's, I would beat myself up. It fed the [bad self-talk](/negative-self-talk-after-stuttering). I was looking at their speech and using it to tear away my own confidence.

## Comparing while you still have to speak

Don described doing this during work calls: hearing a teammate say a word and thinking it was a word he probably couldn't say. I told him I had compared myself too. In that explanation, I said, “I wouldn't do it directly on calls, right? But I mean, I've done it.”

The thing I pointed out was that he was beating himself up while he still had to talk. That's hard. The comparison was becoming another thing happening in his head during the call.

## A different experience to give some attention

In my self-talk work, I ask for [a time your speech went better than you expected](/small-speaking-successes). What did you say to yourself afterward? Was it only, “Why can't I do that all the time?” Or was there also a quiet, “Man, I nailed that”?

I wanted something small I could be excited about, something I could build on. I had spent enough time finding reasons to feel bad about my speech.

## What did I ask Don to notice in another speaker?

In another call, Don described someone who had a lot of presence and confidence. I asked him to pay attention to the way the man spoke:

> The thing I want you to now think about, Don, is his speech — not his fluency, but his confidence. So not the words he says, but the way he says it, the way he uses tonality, the way his voice can go soft or loud.

I asked whether the man had brought enthusiasm to the call. Don said, “Oh, yeah. Big energy, a lot of energy.”

Then I asked Don to speak enthusiastically about something he cared about. We talked about his girlfriend and what he liked about her. That led into [the enthusiasm exercise](/enthusiasm-and-speaking-confidence).

## The part of me that wanted to show them

In another conversation, I recognized something from my own life: wanting to be better after being hurt for so many years. I said, “I'll show them? I'll show them.” Then I said, “But like, they don't give a fuck about me.”

## Related answers

- [Do I have to talk quickly and be funny to be good at conversation?](/pressure-to-speak-quickly-when-you-stutter)
- [How long did it take me to get the speech I wanted?](/how-long-my-stuttering-journey-took)

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