Growing up I developed a speech disorder, throughout my elementary school years I was placed in speech classes to help improve my speech. I have always had these problems while I was younger. In junior high, I was able to surpass some of my conversation dilemmas, but the recurring issues of me not being able to pronounce words and sounds were still prevalent. I grew very insecure over these problems, due to the fact my peers would often make fun of me. I use to dread talking in public and would worry I would mess up my words. My sophomore year of high school, I began to work at Sonic Drive-Inn as a Car-Hop. This required me to become more of an effective communicator for the reason that my job would be nearly all communicating. At first, I was scared to talk over the intercoms to take customer’s orders. When I first started, I would constantly make mistakes and hear people laughing or say something about my mispronunciations and it would make me feel down. After a few months of continuously working at my goal of becoming a better communicator, I hardly notice my speech problems and people making fun of me anymore. By me constantly having to talk to others to perform my job, it assisted me to acquire more confidence. I have not been made fun of over my speech problems in ages. That amazes me how easily those problems that bothered me growing up went away so easily. By gaining this useful skill, it will help me for many years to come with my future career, family, and social life. One of my goals growing up was to decrease this problem and by using communication more often, I overcame and met this goal of mine.
