What if old habits never die? It’s okay to revert back to old tricks
Old habits die hard, but it’s okay if they never actually die. If you revert back to old tricks, it isn’t the end of the world. Read on to learn why.
Reflecting on this summer, it’s had an underlying theme of struggle. Aside from the really exciting, life-changing experience of getting engaged, (eeeeeek!) and amazing vacations, I’ve struggled with overcommitting and setting unrealistic goals. This theme of struggle has been especially present in my speech.
In June I traveled with five of my best friends to Banff and during this week, I was reminded of how competitive it can feel to socialize in a big group. As a person who stutters, it feels like you have to be waiting at the ready for the perfect moment to jump into the conversation. The moment your thoughts are relevant and you have control over your stutter. But external factors you can’t control make it hard to find those perfect moments. makes I get frustrated and when I feel that way for long enough, I revert back to old tricks that (very temporarily) allow me to have fluent speech. Falling back into old habits is a discouraging cycle that’s tough to get out of.
It’s a huge struggle mentally. Since starting ARTS® my goal has been to stutter confidently. Walk up to someone and introduce myself while stuttering on my name and have no fear. Speak to anyone at any time and stutter my way through the conversation without an ounce of insecurity. I’ve been in ARTS® for 6+ years and still judge myself relentlessly for reverting back to old tricks to hide my stutter. I shouldn’t be going backwards on my progress; I should be continuing to challenge myself in high-feared environments, feeling confident 95% of the time I stutter, and openly stutter 99% of the time.
But lately, I don’t feel confident. I don’t feel proud. I don’t feel worthy of the self-proclaimed title “advocate for the stuttering community”. I’m starting to wonder, is my goal impossible? How can I ever stutter confidently when I feel like I easily revert back to tricks when things get tough. Am I lazy? Am I working hard enough? I must not be putting in enough effort every day.
I shared these struggles with my speech therapist recently and he, as he always does, shared some beautiful thoughts and words of wisdom that made me feel at peace with my stutter, which I haven’t felt in a while. He said, one’s stuttering journey is never an easy-to-measure, linear line. There isn’t a clean before and after comparison. Learning to accept your stutter is a journey that’s full of high and lows, peaks and dips, but with the general direction of moving forward. What might feel like your lowest moment isn’t actually as low you felt a year ago. It’s easy to get caught up in focusing on where you fall short and where you didn’t succeed. But what about all of those moments where you did? What about all of those times you took a risk or tried something totally new? What was once considered a high feared environment has moved down in your fear hierarchy to middle or even low. For instance; yeah, I used tricks around my friends because I didn’t want to hear myself stutter, but remember when I wouldn’t even engage in the conversation for of stuttering??
Related: Good Impression or Good Connection
Reverting back to old habits isn’t a sign of weakness or that you’re having a low moment. It can be a sign of growth and success, too. The fact that I’m willing to take a risk in a really high-feared environment says so enough, even if I don’t open stutter. Even if I revert back to tricks, the fact that I was willing to try is a huge success!
I still want to reach my goal of stuttering confidently. But I don’t have to stutter confidently 100% of the time. It’s okay to have moments where I don’t feel confident. To revert back to old tricks and get frustrated. I can allow myself to feel the struggle without judgment and needing to fix anything.
If I stop looking at speech therapy and progress as an upward trending line with an end goal of 100% confidence 100% of the time, and instead look at it as maintenance that’s helpful when I have hard days, I think those low moments won’t feel quite as low.
I want to let go of unrealistic expectations that are preventing me from seeing progress and feeling proud. No one feels confident 100% of the time they are stuttering. No one delivers perfectly speech every time they open their mouth. Everyone gets nervous over certain speaking situations and that’s okay.
This idea of hyperfocusing on the lows and not on the highs is the general theme of this book my friend recommended to me, Gap And The Gain. I’m going to start reading it soon! Here’s a little synopsis:
Most people, especially highly ambitious people, are unhappy because of what they measure themselves against. We all have an ideal, which is like a moving target always out of reach. When we measure ourselves against our ideal, we’re in “The Gap.” However, when we measure ourselves against our previous selves—the person we were when we set our goals and ideals—we will be in “The Gain.” In “The Gain” we can more clearly see the progress we’ve made, and therefore will experience the happiness, confidence, and satisfaction that come from achieving—positive, powerful emotions that will motivate us to pursue new goals and ultimately become increasingly successful.
To summarize, it’s been a summer of struggle with my speech, but I’m determined to reframe my mindset about reverting back to old habits and see them as a measure of growth – or that it’s simply been a hard day and that’s okay too. Be gentle with myself and accept that while old habits may never die, they won’t kill me either.
I hope this post resonates with at least a few of you out there – it’s nice to feel like I’m not alone 🙂
