stop saying "like"

The more he began to crack when the neighbors rebuilt his house wrong….in the one episode… Diddly, didly aack – that’s me. Like, like oh and like….. bah!! Just stop it you fool!

I think I’m actually making an improvement. Not a great one, but one nonetheless.

Have not come close to giving this up. Why is it soooo hard??? Does anyone have any tips, because I swear I get worse the more I think about it. I’m sure people think I’m a moron. It is such a bad habit. I have a very broad vocabulary, I consider myself moderately intellectual yet I cannot avoid this ridiculous habit.

I actually just wrote it in another entry… so hard to give up, and I’m so painfully aware of it now that when I say it, it resounds in my head and then I lose track of what I was saying and then I go TOTAL Valley Girl and say it LIKE 4 more times in a story, then I become VERY aware that I’m doing this while I’m speaking to people that are not only older than me by a decade and already probably think I’m a moron, but also are extremely accomplished, highly educated, career professionals that after hearing me speak must really wonder how I manage to function at all. Argh! I suppose it was ok when I was 19 or 20, but good grief, I’m 31 – I shouldn’t sound like a moron when I speak anymore. What am I saying???? It really was never ok.

I have become painfully aware of just how often I use this word. I say it, like, all the time, and as I say it I wince and deliberately try not to say it, and then totally say it again. I thought maybe everyone says it and I was just being too self-aware. People do say it a lot, but I say it waaaay to often, like three times in one conversational blurb. It started back in high school, it was “cool” or something, I just never grew out of it. It is going to be like waaay too hard to do I’m sure. It’s like blinking, and just there, that was totally unavoidable!