7 tips on how to overcome shyness in meetings
How to overcome shyness in meetings in order to contribute effectively to your company’s success?
This article will provide you with 7 practical tips on how to use your emotions to feel more confident and express yourself best in meetings.
Check out my 7 tips on how to feel comfortable and communicate effectively at work right now.
1 – Stop making excuses not to speak
If you are afraid of:
- being wrong
- conflict
- judgment from others
- criticism
- not being good enough
- bothering people
- being fired
you are simply building a good excuse to stay in your habits.
What happens if your ideas in a meeting do not bring the expected results?
In the worst-case scenario, nothing serious will happen.
However, you will learn from this experience and you will know how to improve the quality of your communication during the next meeting. To improve the effectiveness of your meetings, I recommend you read my complete guide on how to facilitate and organize an effective work meeting.
2 – Use your emotions to take action
If you continue to be silent, it is because you are allowing your emotions to control you.
To make a change, you must learn to use what you feel to finally express your ideas.
Think of all the times that colleagues who are less competent than you have been promoted because they had the courage to speak up in meetings.
Remember how they bragged about themselves and how that made you angry.
Think about the benefits they got instead of you.
Think about the criticism from your boss who tells you all the time that you NEVER have ideas.
Think about the threats of firing from your boss who thinks you’re not a good fit for your job because you NEVER have ANYTHING to say.
Keep thinking about all of those events and when the emotions you are experiencing reach their peak, do something IMMEDIATELY to change.
Find an opportunity right away to express your intelligence in a meeting and show everyone that they are wrong!
3 – Improve the quality of your inner dialogue
To overcome shyness in meetings, you can improve the way you communicate with yourself – your internal dialogue.
If you have difficulty expressing yourself at work, it is also because you regularly send yourself negative signals.
When you don’t speak up, you blame yourself and start criticizing yourself, saying that you’re no good at anything or even worse that you’ll never make it.
How can you effectively communicate your message in meetings if you don’t have a good relationship with yourself?
In order to communicate well with your colleagues, you must first improve your internal communication.
To accomplish this, stop criticizing and limiting yourself.
Find better words to describe your results.
Instead of telling yourself that you don’t have the courage or ability to speak your mind in a meeting, tell yourself that you are in the process of implementing actions to be able to communicate your message clearly and effectively in meetings.
4 – Practice how to counter-argue
No matter how effective your meeting speech is, you are not immune to critics.
As long as criticizing is easy, then expect to receive a lot of criticism.
The best way to deal with this situation is to think about possible questions in advance and prepare good, criticism-proof counterarguments.
This way, most of the criticism will fall by the wayside because your level of preparation will be higher than that of the naysayers.
After the meeting, make a list of constructive criticism and find a way to use it in a future meeting to your advantage.
5 – Find allies
You don’t have to put forward your ideas and take full responsibility.
You can find like-minded colleagues and create a strategy together to clearly and effectively communicate your viewpoints.
Define everyone’s roles in the meeting beforehand and your message will have more impact because of the strength of the group.
Try to find allies with complementary skills to increase the impact of your message.
6 – Suggest solutions
Overcoming shyness in meetings becomes easier if you can propose at least one solution to important problems within your company.
It will have more impact if you can find a solution to an important and long-standing issue.
For the next meeting, prepare one or more proposals to begin solving your organization’s problems.
You don’t have to resolve all the problems on your own.
You just need to be recognized as the person who has started the process.
By offering actionable solutions, you will stand out from most people who simply talk or complain.
7 – Action to take after each meeting
Regardless of how well you do, after each meeting, congratulate yourself for trying to overcome your shyness in meetings.
If you have collaborated with other team members, thank your colleagues for their courage as well.
Give yourself a reward for your behavior in order to increase your motivation to be even more comfortable in meetings.
Then write a list of areas you can improve and actions you can take to be more confident in the next meeting.
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Read this article in other languages
Français : Comment vaincre sa timidité en réunion en 7 simples étapes
Italiano: Come vincere la timidezza durante una riunione di lavoro con i colleghi