Do You Struggle To Speak Up?

I’m not considered to be slow in speaking up. Quite the contrary.

Not always, but if I need to, I do.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were keen to speak up and say your bit, but for whatever reason you didn’t?

Sometimes I don’t because its often wiser to pick your battles, so to speak.

However. This can be a serious issue because if you aren’t prepared to speak up for yourself, no one else is gonna.

What can you do about it?

You need to and deserve to be heard. You have a unique perspective. Your thoughts and opinions are important and valuable. If you can’t accept and believe this, then you will never be able to speak up for yourself.

What others think of you isn’t any of your business. It’s ok to think and consider their feelings, but not to the detriment of what you have to say. You can be tactful or diplomatic, but speak up.

Your can jot it down. Some people are much better at writing their thoughts than verbalising them. Obviously, you can’t hand in a piece of paper during a meeting, but what you can do, if you know the subject in advance, is have your thoughts written down already. That will give you time to practice your delivery.

So. The next time you feel the urge to speak up about something, Don’t be shy. Just do it. Jump right in.

It could be as simple as correcting a waiter who misheard your order.