Why We Often Say Less Than We Think
Have you ever left a meeting thinking, "I should have said that"? Perhaps you had a useful perspective, a question that might have moved the discussion forward or a concern that never quite made it into the conversation.
The frustrating part is that we often know what we wanted to say. We just do not say it. This is more common than many people realise. When people think about confidence at work, they often picture public speaking, presentations or standing in front of a large audience. In reality, confidence often shows up in much smaller moments;
Contributing an idea
Asking a question
Offering a different perspective
Challenging an assumption
These are everyday situations, yet many professionals find themselves holding back. There can be lots of reasons:
You may want to think things through a little more
You may be concerned that your point is not fully formed
You may worry about being wrong, appearing uninformed or taking the conversation in the wrong direction
Sometimes there is also a quieter assumption at work. The belief that if a contribution is worth making, it should be complete, polished and carefully considered. The difficulty is that conversations rarely work like that.
The most useful contributions are not always the most polished. Sometimes they are the questions that make people stop and think. Sometimes they are half-formed ideas that lead to a better discussion. Sometimes they are concerns that others share but have not voiced. One of the patterns I notice among thoughtful professionals is that they often set a higher threshold for contributing than everyone else in the room. For example, they wait until they are certain, while others speak when they are reasonably confident. The result is that valuable thinking can remain invisible.
A useful question to consider is whether the standard you apply to your own contributions is the same standard you apply to other people. Most of us are surprisingly forgiving when someone else offers an idea that is not perfect. We are often far less forgiving when it is our own.
This does not mean speaking for the sake of it. It means recognising that contribution and certainty are not the same thing. You do not need to have the final answer in order to move a conversation forward. You may simply need to share what you are thinking. The next time you leave a meeting, it might be worth asking yourself one question: Did I say less than I wanted to? If the answer is yes, there may be something useful to explore.
Questions to Consider
In what situations do I tend to hold back?
What am I waiting for before I contribute?
How often do I expect certainty from myself before speaking?
What might happen if I lowered that threshold slightly?
Try This This Week
In your next meeting, aim to contribute once, earlier than you normally would, simply because it may be useful. See what happens.
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