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How to Make Yourself Heard in Difficult Conversations
It might take more than one conversation to make yourself understood
I’m the type of person who will suffer in silence for a while before I approach my breaking point and try to raise my voice about something. I suspect it’s largely because I grew up dealing with a family who had so many of their own problems that they really didn’t want to hear about my youthful emotional drama. Then, once I moved out at 21 and had to survive in the workforce, I had a lot of supervisors who were not really interested in what their subordinates thought about working conditions.
Regardless of how it happened, it’s a terrible habit that I’m working on resolving. But like most changes we try to make in our lives, I can’t wave a magic wand and have it happen overnight. If you struggle with raising your voice when you’re faced with unfair or unnecessarily difficult circumstances, it’s really challenging to get to square one of even raising an issue.
It feels like it’s easier just to shut up and take it.
It seems like you’re better off and safer if you keep your head down about the things that are weighing on you.
But it’s not.
The unfortunate truth is that this is a recipe for eventual disaster. Situations won’t become more manageable if you swallow your misery and keep quiet about it. Beyond that, people might end up taking advantage of you even more. Eventually, it’s going to break you.
It’s key to raise your voice before it gets that bad.
You can’t underestimate the impact of stress in your life, whether it’s coming from personal or professional circumstances. Stress eats away at you until it starts to impact your body and behavior; it only gets harder to keep living and be happy if it’s left unaddressed.
But once you do start having a dialogue, you’ve got to prepare yourself to talk about these things in a calm, reasonable manner… and do it more than once.
