How To Inspire The Next Generation Of Females To Take The Opportunities They Want

The past year has brought me on a fairly personal journey. I’ve learned more than I would've imagined about myself but one thing I wasn't expecting to learn so much about was how I communicate, connect, and interact with others. As a girl, we’re typically raised a certain way (whether we like it or not thanks to various media). For me especially, I struggled a lot with being confident talking to others, building relationships, and public speaking as result of a lot of social conditioning. Stereotypes, Ideals, mistakes being blown out of proportion, etc., are pretty real and it can impact our growth. I was convinced I was stuck the way I was because that was just supposed to be me.

So in an effort to help any women who may be in my prior position and want to learn how to build better friendships, connect with girls on a better level, and push themselves to pursue what they don’t think they can do, I wanted to go over what got me so far in just the span of a year in terms of how I connect with others (which has helped me build some of the best friendships I could’ve imagined) and how I think learning self confidence and communication is what is going to help women of the future take the roles they want to.

Imagine this (I’m sure you’ve been here in some way or form)

You’re in a conversation, it doesn’t matter if its a group, one-to-one, etc. This can catch you at anytime, anywhere. You're trying to hide the fact you’re at a loss for words when someone asks you a question because.. well…

while the other person was talking, you were too busy trying to figure out what to talk about when they finish their thought so there’s no awkward dip in the conversation. Now, you have no idea what they just asked you because got side tracked with the thought that maybe you’re standing too close to them. Or maybe too far, let me take a step closer! And then, wait a second… do I have bad breath? I had pizza with onions on it for lunch… never mind, let me take a step back, but oh wait! That’s going to look weird if I do that now. They're going to think I don't want to be around them. What if they think I don’t want to be talking with them???

ok, you know what? problem solved, I’ll just hold my breath.

If you’ve been in a situation like the above (let me know I'm not alone) or something similar, I feel your pain. This is a problem all people have to encounter but when it becomes a constant habit to look at a conversation too objectively (as yours truly has unfortunately made it), life sorta gets exhausting. There's no avoiding it either. conversation is the gateway to well… everything. Its what gets you opportunities, new friends, connecting with old friends, figuring out problems, etc. There's not much it cant solve if its done right.

So as a result of too many encounters like the above and not having the conversations I’ve wanted to, I’ve been making an effort to change the way I connect with people. This has included lots of research, reading, habit building, and you guessed it:

Lots of bad conversations

SO! Kick back, relax, and let me give you the gist of everything I’ve figured out these last few years (and last few months in particular).

So what differentiates a good conversation from a bad one? Like, what really? People have different ideas of what good conversation is, right? Everyone has preferences on what they like to talk about because everyone has insecurities and things they’re proud of. Therefore, a good conversation should be pretty subjective, right?

Well, despite that, I think I’ve managed to narrow it down to a common denominator of bad conversation, and that is: Looking at things too objectively or too personally.

Now, the above scenario plays on hyper objective conversation, but we’ll dive a little into hyper personal as well.

And don’t get me wrong, looking at yourself objectively is GOOD most of the time, and so is being authentic and personal. But when we get really caught up in ourselves, whether that be hyper objective or hyper personal, we give ourselves up to our instinctual selves. That’s never good. We tend to make a lot of mistakes when we’re too far into one of these two states.

So what I mean is: when we get more caught up with ourselves in a conversation instead of the actual conversation, we don’t connect. The focus isn’t on building a conversation, its more or less about you in some way.

There’s your hyper objective self and your hyper personal self.

There are two slippery slopes to fall down when we’re in a conversation with the intent to truly connect. And that’s our:

• Hyper objective self
• Hyper personal self

each category has different methods of which they try to connect with someone. Put simply, the hyper objective self likes to plan and the hyper personal likes to force. These methods aren’t inherently bad, but when we rely on just one, things get messy. More on that later.

So when we’re out connecting with people, we want to be authentic and connected (personal) with ourselves, while also being slightly our objective introspective self (objective). We’re not looking to eradicate anything. There should be a fair balance between our feeling-connected selves and our objective-introspective selves during a good conversation. You do need BOTH. Because relying heavily on one leaves everyone involved not feeling understood. We’re looking for a balance between our objective selves, and our personal selves.

You can kind of look at it this way: being super invested in your hyper objective self is like treating the conversation as a science. You make calculations, theories, hypotheses, etc. You’re looking for the next step or the answer. Where as when you’re in a conversation with the hyper personal self, you’re treating the exchange more so as an art. You feel everything that’s said really deeply and are more likely to take things personally.

Another good way of looking at it, is imagining you have different tools in conversations. Maybe you always go for the hammer, screw driver, saw, etc. You’re always relying on one method but in order to build something, (like any sort of real connection) chances are you’ll need the whole toolbox. You’ll need to rely on both the science side of things, as well as the art.

So maybe now you’re realizing you fall into a category. You always go into conversations with the hyper objective self, or maybe the hyper personal self. That’s the first step! Lets dive into what might point you into a certain category/tendency.

THE HYPER OBJECTIVE SELF

This is the category I find myself in more often than not and more so what this article is going to focus on. If you have a tendency to:

• make sure everything runs smoothly at a consistent pace. No awkward silences or dips. I can NOT risk upsetting this person in any way or making things awkward.
• I call this one scripting, it’s when you have a list of backup questions to fall onto (that you’ve put extensive thought into.) and you pull them out throughout the interaction. It’s good to have a few general ones to ask anybody, but spending a good hour before a conversation coming up with questions isn’t as normal.
• Overall, just trying to come off as someone you aren’t. You run the hypothetical exchange over and over with ways you could approach it. Should I do this? Would it be strange if I asked that? etc, etc.

All the above can point you into the hyper objective category. I believe at the end of the day, you care a lot about people and your time with them. The last thing you want to imagine is making someone feel uncomfortable, disengaged, feeling like you don’t care, or having them look at you in a bad light. That’s not a bad thing, most if not all of us feel that way. What’s not so great are the habits you’ve built around them. I’ll get into how to target those soon.

THE HYPER PERSONAL SELF

This mindset is so easy to fall into as well. There are a few things that can indicate you’ve strayed into this category, like:

• You NEED to dive deep. Otherwise the conversation wasn’t up to par in your eyes. you want to connect immediately.
• You can’t help but bring up the “uncomfortable” questions. Maybe you get a little too personal. Either with your questions or with your responses.
• You’re looking for some emotional feedback. You want the responses to hold a lot of meaning.

these all can put you in the hyper personal box. People like this want the big picture. They want immediate connection. That can be a great quality! Being authentic and personal is what pushes you farther in your personal struggles and can actually help other people. However, It’s all about the habits you have built around them. Are the healthy? Are they effective?

Hopefully now, it’s becoming a little more clear how you might be handling a conversation. And that’s nice and all but we want to eliminate the bad habits now, right? So how do we have a genuinely good connection with someone? How do we balance the art and the science?

Well, after a hell of a lot of trail and error, I think I’ve finally come to a conclusion that solves the issue on both sides of the spectrum. Whether you’re the Hyper personal, the hyper objective, or anywhere in between, as it turns out just implementing three things will solve it.

be warned, the solution is a recipe, you need to implement all “ingredients” to get any real results. They are:

• listening with the intent to LISTEN (not respond or to get a reaction)
• Challenging your weak spots regularly in conversation with self reflection at the end.
• A grueling amount of practice.

I know, I didn’t like the answer either. It feels way too obvious. I could’ve gotten the advice to, “listen with the intent to listen”, in fourth grade. Even worse, you give me the advice to practice? uhgg. Forget that. I’ll figure out how it really works. Maybe there’s been a study done on body language, and understanding that will help me. Or what if it has something to do with the tone of voice and being able to read that will give me the answer? Or what if it all depends on how charismatic we can be? What’s the correlation between how well humor, teasing, praise, etc is timed/implemented in how charming a person is?

Well I hate to break it to you, but none of the above helps at the end of the day if you can’t learn to genuinely listen to someone and practice, practice, practice. Trust me, I’ve already tried. Learning how to analyze someone’s eyebrow movement and positioning of their feet instead of listening to what they’re talking about, surprisingly, doesn’t get you far.

I get it though, the advice is vague. You probably want a clear cut way to actually go about balancing your conversational skills. And to that, I have a couple of actionable tips. Keep in mind however, that everyone is different (and these tips are coming from a person who tends to lean too much on the hyper objective side of things). Find what works for practicing and listening for you.

• challenge yourself to have a set number of conversations/presentations/communication positions in a week, a month, etc. But make it a specific number and stick to it! I personally started a ‘100 conversations with strangers’ challenge in the span of a month and a half and it pretty much changed everything.
• practice discomfort. do something once in a while that scares you. (bonus if it’s everyday) it doesn’t have to be skydiving or bungee jumping, just a small “risk” you take to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. It could be wearing that shirt that you like but have never had the guts to wear out, calling a friend on the phone randomly, painting your nails, asking someone you don’t know that well how they’re doing. like, really doing, etc. The goal is to push yourself out of your comfort zone and experience what you perceive as a risk.
• Go into a conversation with the pure intent to listen. Practice putting all the attention onto whoever you’re talking to. NOTE: this isn’t how you truly connect with someone, this is practice. If you’re never part of the conversation, you’re not building a healthy connection. Keep that in mind if implemented.

After all that, it comes down to building the confidence to do what is new to you. Maybe you’ve mastered talking to someone 1–1 but you can’t get a handle for public speaking. Or maybe you can barely get by trying to open up with someone 1–1 but you rock at taking professionally in large groups, etc. Pushing past those challenges is hard but its what is going to make you better and more confident. Which is key to doing anything that’s important to you. That confidence from yourself is going to put you in the best position to communicate with others and put you on the path you want.

That all being said, it’s not an overnight process. Even after working on this for so long and so hard, this next year looks like even more for me to tackle. Graduating high school, meeting new people, starting new projects, etc. These are all going to require my best foot forward in communication and confidence. The only way to do that is to honestly, keep trying. That’s pretty much all I want anyone to take from this. If you try for long enough, you start to get a better handle of anything. I hope this year next year is all about trying for me and I hope that's the same for people trying to improve something about themselves too. It harbors some of the craziest results.

Thanks so much for taking time to read this! if you enjoyed or found this article helpful, leave some claps! It’s greatly appreciated!

Also, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them through my email iizzysanfilippo@gmail.com or my LinkedIn here.

Thank you again for reading!