If you’ve ever watched a recording of yourself speaking and winced at the “ums” and “uhs,” welcome to the club! Most people who come to me wanting to get rid of filler words like those are convinced that’s that reason they don’t come across as confident. (Toastmasters teaches that filler words are “distracting verbal clutter that reduces speaker credibility.”)
I’ve found that they’re usually not the problem; they’re a symptom of another problem. Treat the symptom and you’ll be playing whack-a-mole when another symptom crops up. Instead, you need to fix the underlying problem. When you do that, the fillers tend to fade on their own.
Why Filler Words Aren’t the Real Problem
Let me be clear: excessive fillers are a problem. They can be distracting, and too many of them can undermine how confident you sound. But confidence comes from a lot of things working together, and “um” is rarely the main character.
When someone tells me they want to stop saying “um” and “uh,” I start by getting to the heart of what’s actually driving them.
What’s Actually Causing Your Filler Words
You’re Still Organizing Your Thoughts
This is one of the most common causes. Speaking while you’re thinking and organizing your thoughts takes practice. If you’re figuring out what order you want to say things in while you’re saying them, you can find yourself stumbling and adding a lot of fillers along with the hesitation. Having a structure to organize your thoughts gives you a roadmap, so you’re not building the road while you drive on it.
You Don’t Have Control of the Words Coming Out
When your nervous system is in the driver’s seat, your mouth can run ahead of your brain. You don’t always have control over what you are saying. Oftentimes, the filler words are part of excessive rambling. Getting control of your nerves and your pace goes a long way toward getting control of your fillers.
You Don’t Realize You’re Doing It
Some people just aren’t aware of how often they do it. This is especially true for words like “like,” or when every gap gets filled with an “and” or a “so.” I count those as fillers too, and they’re sneakier than “um” because they sound like real words.
Sounding Confident Is About More Than Fillers
Even if you eliminated every filler word tomorrow, you wouldn’t automatically sound confident. You have to look confident, which comes from your body language, and sound confident, which comes from your tone, clarity, and focus. Fillers are one piece of a bigger picture. If your tone trails off at the end of every sentence, or your message is unclear, a spotless “um” record won’t save you.
This is also why preparation alone doesn’t always help. You can do all the work and still sound uncertain if your delivery habits are working against you.
On the flip side, you can often get away with fillers when you do have a charismatic and confident presence and are making your point clearly. (There’s quite a few popular TED talks that have more fillers in that you may even realize.)
C’s Story: The Fillers Went Away Without Targeting Them
I worked with a client, C, who came to me struggling to get her thoughts out clearly. She would stumble, ramble, and sprinkle fillers throughout. She wanted help stopping the fillers.
I didn’t start with the fillers. (Although I do have methods that I can use to get people to stop fillers, some more uncomfortable than others!) We worked on controlling her nerves and building good speaking habits. She slowed down a bit, got more concise, got comfortable with pauses, and learned how to structure her thoughts so they came out more clearly. Her fillers dropped to the point where they weren’t a distraction anymore.
And here’s the part I love: we never directly worked on reducing them. Once the underlying issues were handled, the fillers had nothing left to do. (If rambling is part of your story too, here’s how to stop it.)
Techniques That Actually Reduce Fillers
Speak in Shorter Sentences and Pause Between Them
Long, winding sentences are filler magnets. Shorter sentences give you natural places to pause instead of reaching for an “um.” I have people practice speaking in shorter sentences and deliberately pausing between them. Try summarizing your day each evening in short sentences. Record it and listen to the recording to see how you are doing with this.
Read Out Loud Very Slowly
I have an exercise I call “painfully slow reading” that I make some of my clients do. While I won’t get into full details here, you can do something similar on your own. Read something aloud painfully slowly, which forces a pause between sentences. Since you’re reading, you don’t add an “um” or “uh” in those gaps the way you would when speaking off the cuff. You get to hear exactly what you sound like without the fillers in there, and that’s the sound you’re aiming for.
Let Your Audience Hear the Punctuation
When we read, we automatically leave tiny pauses after commas and slightly bigger ones after periods. Do the same when you speak. Add a verbal period at the end of a thought, and a pause naturally follows it. That pause is where the filler used to live.
Mistakes People Make Trying to Fix Fillers on Their Own
- Obsessing over it. Some people get so worried about fillers that they get flustered the moment one slips out, and lose their train of thought. Now you’ve traded a filler for a blank, which is worse in my opinion.
- Swapping one filler for another. The classic is trading “um” for “so.” Same problem, different costume.
- Making a clicking noise. I’ve had a few people click their tongue to avoid saying a filler. It’s creative, but the audience can hear it, and it’s just as distracting.
What to Do Before Your Next Presentation
If you’ve got a presentation or meeting coming up and no time for coaching, here’s your one assignment: slow down a little and let your audience hear the punctuation. Leave a small pause after commas and a slightly longer one at the end of each sentence, just like you would when reading aloud. That one change does more than any amount of white-knuckling your way past “um.”
Fillers Are Fixable (and Usually Not the Real Issue)
If you’ve been trying to stamp out your filler words and it isn’t working, it’s likely because you’ve been fighting the symptom. Get at what’s underneath, and the “ums” tend to take care of themselves.
If you’d like help with that, explore my coaching programs or book a free consultation. Not sure what to look for in a coach? I’ve put together some tips on how to find a good public speaking coach.
Want to keep building these skills on your own in the meantime? Subscribe to my free Substack newsletter for a public speaking challenge delivered to your inbox every week.