Her Thoughts

Speaking with Confidence – Self Esteem

Where does self-esteem come from? Do you feel uncomfortable when you are to speak to someone about a critical issue? Or when you give feedback to your boss,a staff member, your spouse?

Read carefully as you explore how self-esteem affects your ability to communicate effectively and build your speaking confidence!

Speaking with Confidence comes with practice and modifying your self-talk! As you build your confidence, you also build your self-esteem!

First, let’s understand that you are born with high self-esteem…yes, it’s true! What happens is as you are growing up – you make mistakes, you do silly things and you may be told not to do or say what you do or say! In fact, you may start doubting yourself and wonder if there is something wrong with you! The result is a feeling of insecurity or concern of other people’s opinions of you.

Second, when you have a low sense of self-esteem, you have a difficult time speaking what you believe to be true, you stop yourself because you may think "who wants to listen to me anyway?" You may think, "what I have to say isn’t that important", or "who am I for them to pay attention to what I say?"

Third, in actuality, there is nothing wrong with you, and you are entitled to give your opinion! You are entitled to speak what you know to be true based on the way you see the world! And who knows, there may be something you say that can influence some one who is hearing your perspective.

While building your self-esteem necessitates deeper transformation than can be identified in this article, you can work toward building it daily.

Here are a couple of simple yet profound ideas:

1. Speak up before you are called on to say something. Take initiative. Plan ahead what you are going to say – even writing out an initial script. Practice in your head what you are going to say, and consider what the other person may be thinking so that you can address what may surface in the conversation!
2. Think before you speak. Instead of jumping in, be silent. Sometimes your silence speaks louder than anything you have to say! If you speak too quickly you may say something you regret. Furthermore, have you ever noticed that you are brilliant an hour later after the conversation is over? It seems as though all of a sudden, you know exactly what you could have said!

Practice taking initiative in your conversations every day. As you repeat through practice, you’ll be able to speak with certainty. The positive statements build your self-esteem and enable you to speak your truth with confidence!