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.
It’s not necessarily your problem. Especially on the internet.
Don’t let the opinions of strangers who are often willfully and ignorantly interpreting you dictate what you mean.
If you have certain discussions you want to be a part of, well read up on that topic, get informed. And choose sources, which, as you say, are interested in understanding things, rather than proving a point or ‘winning’.
They exist. But boy oh boy is most of the info out there some weird petty dummy who just wants to beat up on anyone else who has a different opinion. And most often this is the type of person you will encounter in discussions, both IRL and on the internet, and the best response to those people is to ignore them and focus your energy on folks who want to engage you in the way you want to be engaged.
I’m with you.
It seems like more times than not, I feel like I’ve fully explained the situation, and the person I’m talking to responds as if I said the complete opposite or something completely unrelated.
I’m willing to accept that I’m doing something wrong, but when I put extra effort in to make sure that everything is explained accurately, it STILL gets misinterpreted. I’m starting to think that people are just really stupid and/or terrible listeners.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Use the Socratic method; phrase your statements as questions.
It helps soften your dialogue quite a bit and makes the conversation a quest for discovery.
Good one, thanks for the input. I guess it comes down to being more zen, take more time to listen and formulate? And even not going into the discussion if u don’t understand it clearly
Yes, listening and formulate a question response. Like other commenter said, approach conversations with curiosity. I’ll also add that approaching them as something fun will also help. You could also try arguing just for fun.
I might take a silly position just to have a fun discussion on it. For example: ensalda caprese is a fruit and cheese salad.
