5 tips on how to speak safely to anyone
A simple conversation is more complex than it may seem In the first moment.
On the one hand, you have to take into account what is being said, since it is not always easy to translate thoughts into words, and on the other, you have to pay attention to how the other person reacts, what he says and what ideas and messages his speech. All this happens at the same time, in real time, and it has to be combined with the decisive influence of non-verbal language, capable of making our words have a totally different meaning depending on the context.
This causes some people to be prone to doubt and show insecurity when talking with others . In these cases, some advice about how to speak more safely always comes in handy.
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Speak with confidence: 5 very useful tips
First, we must bear in mind that adopting a communicative style that expresses greater security is a task that involves many psychological functions. This means that there is no magic solution to move to radiate charisma overnight. However, with a little practice and perseverance, it is possible to notice very significant changes in the way we express ourselves ... and also in the way in which the people we speak with react to us.
So that, to speak with more security in front of all kinds of people, a real training is necessary , which implies that just reading and internalizing ideas and concepts does not help much. The tips that you will read below have to be put into practice, get out of the theory, to help you in your social relationships. That said, let's move on to the tips.
1. Train eye contact
The simple fact of avoiding eye contact predisposes us to adopt a role of submission and let the other person take the reins of the conversation. For that reason, it is good that at the beginning you focus on the task of avoiding those moments in which the gaze is wandering from one place to another as long as it does not meet with that of the person in front of you.
However, the trick is not to stare at the eyes of our interlocutor in an obsessive way, but simply to pay attention to the moments in which this "disconnection" occurs in order to correct them or, at least, control them. This last nuance is important, because it is not necessary to maintain eye contact in an uninterrupted manner in a rigid manner, although this must predominate.
When you notice that you are looking at the other in a way too "artificial" and unnatural, it simply expands your radius of visual attention and looks not to your eyes but to your face as a whole; in that way, even if you do not realize it, the crossing of looks will be much more spontaneous.
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2. Project your voice
It is better to perform this exercise alone, so that later, when applying it to real conversations , it is only necessary to modulate the tone, since a good part of this pattern of movements of the buccal and neck muscles would have already been learned.
For this, it is good to combine the essay alone with the imagined visualization. Close your eyes, imagine a real context of conversation, and modulate your voice until it takes on a quality that expresses assertiveness and self-confidence. The more vivid the scene, the better.
3. Improve your articulation when talking
There are people in whom the insecurity at the time of speaking is due to small defects in speech. When you notice them, you try to mask them by speaking low and maintaining a discrete profile in general. If this is your case and you think that these defects are very pronounced, you can consider going to a speech therapist. If you think they are not very pronounced, it's worth practicing on your own .
This is another task you can do alone. To do this, at first you must "warm up" the muscles of the mouth, then go talking in an improvised monologue, attending to the small errors of pronunciation. Remember the words in which you have failed and try to roughly reproduce the phrase in which they were included until you pronounce it well. This task can be boring, but correcting the joint helps to avoid insecurity.
On the other hand, keep in mind that everybody makes a mistake relatively often when it comes to talking . Therefore, do not get obsessed with these errors if you think that their frequency of appearance is comparable to that of other people; in fact, the interlocutors tend not to pay attention to them and to "fill in" automatically the vacuum of meanings that in theory should produce these imperfections.
4. Deviate from the situation
Virtually all people have the ability to distance ourselves from the experiences we experience in the here and now. This means that we do a slight emotional disconnect with respect to what is happening. It is something similar to what happens with derealization, a psychological phenomenon by which we have the feeling that the place where we are, some people or living beings, or the context in general, are parts of a set, something that is not it means too much
So, when you notice that in a conversation you can show a significant degree of insecurity, try to distance yourself, assuming that the person talking to you, while still being human, is not so important in spite of everything, nor indispensable so you can continue living. Your opinions about you are very important , and also has a very limited and imperfect perception about who you are. It is an exercise that is also common in the world of actors and actresses, in which the fear of ridicule is fought.
- Related article: "Depersonalization and derealization: when everything seems like a dream
5. Work your self-esteem
If you want to go beyond the concrete problem of insecurity when talking, it is good that you work to improve your self-esteem. For this there are different methods, although Going to the psychologist can help you a lot at the time of proposing training and modification of beliefs programs, keep track of your progress and control problems that may arise.
