Bad Speaking Habits to Break Now

It can be embarrassing to speak in front of co-workers and supervisors in settings like meetings or presentations, but the most critical speaking mistakes typically occur during everyday conversation. These bad habits make you look uneducated, unprofessional and can lead to poor first impressions. Avoid these mistakes in order to make the most out of conversation.

Many professionals lack assertiveness when they speak. Making every statement or comment a question can make you look unsure and unassertive, which can lead to unimpressed co-workers. These professionals may not be taken as seriously or with as much consideration as someone who speaks with strength and confidence.

Another bad speaking habit is including “like” in sentences where no comparison is being made. In today’s society, “like” has become a common slang word that often takes the place of a pause. Unless you're comparing two things, sprinkling the word into sentences they don’t belong in can make you appear unprofessional. Be sure to watch sentence structure to avoid overusing this common nuisance.

Laughing at even the most basic of statements is another common bad habit. Though laughing, like “like”, can take the place of a pause or ease the tension of an awkward conversation, it may not be appropriate to lighten the mood with laughter in the workplace. Laughing isn’t the only aspect to this bad habit—noises in general can distract others from the statement being made and can make the professional less influential, or worse, more annoying to co-workers.

It's also important to avoid using words you don't fully understand incorrectly. If you want to start incorporate new words into your vocabulary, you should be especially careful that these new words mean what you think they mean. For instance, “all intents and purposes” is often said as “all intensive purposes”. Thus, because the latter is more frequently spoken, the professional is more likely to write it that way in an email or a letter, which can be extremely embarrassing when it comes across someone who knows what the saying actually is.

Using “I think” in statements where it does not belong is another bad speaking habit. This ties in with the first bad habit and being assertive; the professional sounds unsure of himself when he uses “I think” at the beginning of a statement. Comments and opinions should be made with confidence—after all, chances are the professional’s expertise and knowledge is the reason he was hired. If he sounds unsure of himself or lacking in confidence, it can ultimately give supervisors and managers the impression that he doesn’t know as much as they thought he did. Luckily, with a little practice, this bad habit can be broken.

These bad habits can lead to some embarrassing mistakes and situations that most professionals would rather avoid. Be on the lookout for annoying behaviors like this and make the most of conversations with co-workers and supervisors.

Image courtesy of Nadine Dereza at Flickr.com