I’ve noticed that I often struggle to express what I actually mean during discussions.
Sometimes my main point gets lost because I phrase it poorly, use a weak example, or realize later that I misunderstood what the other person was saying. I often leave conversations thinking, “That wasn’t what I was trying to say.” or “I am not being taken serious.”
For those of you who used to have this problem:
How did you get better at expressing your thoughts? Did you practice in a specific way? How do you make sure you’re responding to someone’s actual point instead of what you think they mean? Or is it really just keeping your mouth shut if you aren’t knowledgeable about something.
It has gotten to the point that I find myself just not wanting to jump into the discussion, because I feel like that it’s more about who is right , than understanding and being understood.
I’d love to hear any advice or habits that helped you become a clearer communicator. Book recommendations are also welcome.
Lemmy doens’t have Social Skills community(that i can find) or anything so sorry for posting this in AskLemmy.
Reflections so far:
Be curious. Socratic method; phrase your statements as questions. It helps soften your dialogue quite a bit and makes the conversation a quest for discovery.
Try to formulate things simple. The simpler u can explain something, the better u understand it and the less words to be confused about for both parties.
Rhetorical Triangle: Ethos, Pathos and Logos
Write more. It forces u to think critical about things. And gives u the opportunity to reflect on your own opinions.
Don’t take yourself, or other people too serious.
I feel you. Sometimes people just start to loop into the same argument. Or they are actually agreeing with me, but still have to be right in how they are formulating it.
There’s two things I’ve found that happen if there is a loop in the conversation.
They aren’t getting the causal implications. At that point, it is important to stop and ask if there was anything said earlier in the conversation that was unclear where they are asking the same question again. It starts to put them on the spot because you’re rejecting their question and forcing them to rearticulate their question. It isn’t enough that you’re saying something, but that they’re listening.
They don’t like the argument but they don’t have a good response to tell you so they’re hoping to wear you down. At this point, there isn’t anything you can do to convince them so it is more laying out the consequences, protecting yourself, and moving forward. Drop all pretense at convincing them. If the chain of command needs to get involved, get it involved.