My Stuttering Journey in 2024

Good morning everyone,

I hope you’re having a brilliant start to the day 🙂

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks reflecting on several different areas of my life as I prepare to look ahead for whatever 2025 will have in store. With this in mind, I wanted to take a look at my stutter and the progress I have made along my journey to speech fluency in today’s blog for you all.

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

For the last (almost) six years, I have been talking about stuttering here on the page, be it past experiences I have had with my speech, lessons learnt along the way, different techniques for managing your speech to famous people with speech impediments, and so much more. I always try and be as open and honest as I can, sharing a real view of someone who is living with a stutter.

At the start of each year, I typically do a “MY Stuttering Journey in XX” blog to break the year into four quarters and summarise the key trends, experiences and updates on how my speech performed in those months. I wanted to mix things up this year, so instead of a quarterly split, we are going to take a look at my stutter holistically, highlighting certain points over the year.

One of my highlights of 2024 was doing my first ever bit of public speaking. In October, I returned to the Henley Business School, where I studied as a student, to speak to current students about their placements years and lives after university. I won’t go into too much detail on the session itself (I have a whole blog published on it, if you would like some extra context), however, I am so proud of going back and taking part in that session.

Going from barely being able to speak clearly in 2020 to going on a stage in front of students, employers, lecturers and more, well, if that isn’t progress, I don’t know what is. I have learnt a lot about myself over the last couple of years, gaining a load of confidence and starting to understand just how capable I am. There was a time where I was ashamed of my stutter, but not anymore, it is a part of what makes me, me.

While I have made considerable progress along my pathway to fluent speech, I know I still have a long way to go. there are times when I’ll randomly stutter a lot, times when I cannot get a word out and some words that I struggle to say (such as Georgia, event, Anne-Marie and several others). I am not 100% sure how I am going to overcome these as of yet, however, I know that I will find a way – it’s all a part of the process.

One of the key lessons I have picked up on this journey is that fixing a stutter is not an overnight kind of thing. It’s something that will take a lot of time, with the solutions you use potentially changing along the way. The most important thing is to not put too much pressure on yourself, you’ll figure it out. My speech has improved massively over the last 10 years, and I am sure it will continue to do so moving forward.

I suppose one thing that has helped my stutter outa lot throughout 2024 is how much speaking I have been doing. Whether it is at work (speaking in the office, over the phone and via virtual calls), weekends away with friends, travelling to Porto by myself, and so much more, I have continually pushed myself outside of my comfort zone. While this can be scary, I have done it very gradually to ensure that I scale at a pace which feels right for me.

Looking ahead to 2025, while I have no idea what you’ll have in store, I cannot wait for it all. No matter what happens, I’m sure we’ll find a way to see the positives and continue making progress – bring it on I say. As always, I’ll keep you guys updated with any changes and developments as soon as I have them 🙂

That’s all for today’s blog, what do you think? What was your proudest achievement in 2024? What are you looking forward to in 2025?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely day!