Verbalize your thoughts before you share them with others.
Are you ever in a situation where you’re trying to explain a thought or idea, and right in the middle, you think to yourself, “this doesn’t actually sound like a great idea.”
This happens to me often because I’m a verbal processor and thinker. I get excited about something, try to explain it to somebody and then in the middle, go, “forget it, this isn’t a good idea. It sounds silly as I’m saying it out loud.”
There are two ways I overcome that. The first is by sharing my idea with a sparring partner. I talked about this in my recent blog, Find Yourself a Sparring Partner. I need someone I can bounce an idea off and know that they won’t just say, “that’s a great idea.” Instead, they’ll tell me if it’s a bad idea, if it doesn’t make sense or if they have a different opinion. That’s always valuable.
Secondly, you can practice it yourself, like a sales pitch or customer service meeting. Verbalize the conversation you’re going to have in your car on the way there or at your office ahead of time. Hear how it sounds coming out of your mouth because what we’re thinking in our heads often sounds completely different once said out loud. Think about how you can change what you were going to say or reorder it to make more sense.
I’ve found that verbalizing my thoughts before sharing them is a valuable technique. I’d be interested to hear what you think about it!
