3 Ways to Practice Speaking Up in Meaningful Ways

Speaking up for ourselves, others, our ideas, and important issues can feel pretty uncomfortable, if not downright scary. Speaking up is a skill, that takes practice – like a muscle that must be built and strengthened over time.

In this Greatest Hits episode, I share about an event where I spoke a couple of years ago. After my session, there was time for Q&A and the question folks kept circling back to was, “How do I start to speak up so I can play a bigger game?”

A number of attendees noted they were so in the habit of not speaking up that they didn’t know where or how to start using their voices.

Because women have been socialized to stay small and quiet, if can take extra effort (and bravery!) to actually use our voices.

I gave these women three simple, low-risk steps to start practicing speaking up:

Practice stating your preferences out loud
Practice stating your needs out loud
Practice sharing opposing opinions in neutral ways

These steps are intended to be practiced over time, in this order. Start out with low-risk/low exposure steps. The stakes are typically pretty low when you’re stating a preference: “I prefer pepperoni pizza to sausage & mushroom.” Or, “I would prefer to watch Movie ABC vs Movie XYZ this evening.”

Once you’ve practiced this a few times, try to share a need with a loved one: “I need some time to myself, so I’m going to take myself to lunch and a movie this weekend.” Practice this a few times.

Once you’ve practiced these lower-stakes ways of speaking up, you can start to test higher-stakes ways of speaking up. This is where you can start to practice sharing an opposing opinion in a neutral way, “Thank you for sharing your opinion/experience. That hasn’t been my experience.” Or, “Thank you for sharing your opinion/experience. I see it differently.” Make sure to listen in to the episode to learn how to do #3 safely, this part is important!

The goal is to build your “Speak Up muscle” and then continually strengthen it over time. The outcomes you can expect include: feeling seen and heard, experiencing a stronger sense of power and autonomy, realizing your voice matters and can impact others and inspire change, and enjoying a sense of freedom over owning and honoring your voice. While speaking up can feel scary, I promise it is well worth it!

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