My struggle with Tough Conversations
If you’ve been following my blogs and journey since the last year, you might’ve found a LOT of content about conversations — how to get better at them, being retrospective-ready and better listening techniques.
But for the longest time, I’ve struggled with having tough conversations with my peers, elders and colleagues. I still do.
Honestly, I feel I could hurt them, might’ve mistaken them or worst of all, might totally ruin the relationship that we share at the moment, if I open up a topic that’s bothering me. Because, “who might want to hear about what I feel?”
I’d generally provide slight suggestions, fickle hints or prefer silence over a lot of matters — even the ones that might be killing me from the inside.
Not long ago, a situation arrived that it became imperative for me to have one of the toughest conversations, the ones that I had been, quite frankly, avoiding.
Until.. I mustered up the courage to finally have the conversation.
Here’s how I prepped-
1.Do Not Wing it-
Be it a personal or professional setting, if this is the person or topic that is close to your heart, and you want to address it- there are chances you might get overflown with emotions, passion or disbelief. Understand that the person you are talking to might not feel the same way. So, in order to get everything discussed in an unbiased way, make sure you are prepared. If there are questions in your mind, make sure they are framed (at least in your mind) in a way that they get your point across clearly. You could also think of the possible outcomes and any followup questions that you might want to ask.
My takeaway- just be prepared, especially if you are someone like me, who struggles to put thoughts to words, precisely when the discussion is around something that has been bothering you.
2. Thoughts are subjective-
Most often than not, humans tend to live in a bubble that is just revolving around them. We end up believing that what we are going through is pretty much the reality of the situation.
Its important to take a step back and look at it from a different angle. And once one is able to do that, they might soon realise that the way we feel about this issue might not be the way others view it. Or even, one might be overthinking about it, to begin with.
Talking it out will open up channels of two-way communication than just a single-sided jumbled-mumbled time wastage.
3. Be Human-
Being a mum, my little one teaches me every single day how unconditioned real human mind and soul is. His mind is free from prejudice, caste, colour, gender, politics, nationality, or any other social barriers that we have created for ourselves. His thoughts are pure and full of innocence. And its this innocence and purity that we probably have lost over the years, the conditioning being taken care by society. Honestly, I’ve personally experienced improvement in relations and peace of mind upon bringing back humanity, innocence and purity into my thoughts over the years now.
So, I cannot emphasise on this enough-
while you’re having your tough conversation, be kind and compassionate towards yourself, the situation and most importantly, the other person.
Imagine going into the discussion totally hot-headed. Do you think its going to go down well with the listener?
Its only when you radiate empathy yourself, can you expect it to be reciprocated.
4. Make it personal-
In short, please don’t try to communicate this contextually important conversation over text, email or voice message. If you can’t meet them in person, go for a video call.
There’s something about talking in person that cannot be replaced.
One can break the ice, sense the response, gauge how the conversation is going and have an open two-way chat freely. Let’s not loose the human connect.
5. Be open to feedback-
Out of all of the above, I prepared myself for this the most- to be open to listening the other person’s thoughts, to be open to take feedback, to just listen. This is probably because I’m constantly trying to better myself at listening, I began by trying to detach myself from the situation.
I’d say it helped when I described the situation in one or two sentences in my mind a couple of times to look at it a bit more subjectively than personally.
This helped me gain perspective and eventually I took feedback quite openly.
I’m no expert at conducting good conversations or handling tough situations well. But I’m definitely surrounded by some really smart people and I’m constantly learning from them, from my mistakes and from change in perspective over the years.
I believe by taking these little steps of courage, we build our personality chip by chip, day by day. Also, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel proud at the end of the conversation.
So, here’s me hoping that these few tips come handy to you if you’re in a similar spot.
I’d love to know how you deal with your tough conversations? Do you struggle and overthink as much? Or did you find it perhaps easy to get done with it? Do share your thoughts and feedback.
Until next month,
Happy reading!
