5 Steps for Saying the Hard Things

One of the biggest areas for growth for me (and many people!) is finding the right balance between speaking my truth and keeping my mouth shut. I spent a lot of years working hard to keep my mouth shut. I organized my thoughts and opinions around others so that I would be acceptable to everyone else. I was raised in a part of the country where women are taught to be submissive. We also live in a country where women with strong opinions are often labeled as bitchy and difficult. So, it’s not surprising that I didn’t say the things that I wanted to say. But it also isn’t sustainable.

I’ve since realized that keeping my mouth shut routinely resulted in me believing that I don’t matter. I legitimately believed that everyone else had more valid opinions and feelings than me. If I was unhappy with something, my job was struggle through it to figure out how to make myself feel good about the situation rather than honoring that I was uncomfortable or frustrated. This inability to speak led to situations where I was taken advantage of in a variety of ways, both emotionally and physically.  

If you’ve been in a toxic relationship, this silencing can be even worse, and I don’t want to diminish this reality. If you grew up in a family where you are punished for having differing opinions or if you are in a committed relationship with someone who lashes out if you stand up for yourself, then these behaviors are even more difficult to uncoil. But it’s possible.

I don’t think I woke up one morning and thought, “Today I’m going to start saying the hard things”. It was much more gradual than that. A variety of influences over the course of many years led to my realization that I had anger and resentment built up about keeping my mouth shut. Over those years, and since then, I’ve learned a lot about saying the hard things. These might be helpful, and they may be totally different for you – so take them with a grain of salt.

1. The anxiety about saying the hard thing doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t say it. I speak my truth more routinely now, and I still get nervous every time. I’ve realized that it is not going to go away, and I have to lean into the fear and do it anyway. When you learn for your whole life not to say what’s on your mind, you will be nervous because you have some built -in fear that you are going to get a negative reaction. But that leads me to my next point…
2. Despite what you might think, other people want to hear what you have to say. If you are in the business world, you might realize that there is a lot of talk about authenticity now – and trust- and transparency. People really value honesty. And they really pick up on it when you are squashing yourself and they don’t like it. People actually like you more when you speak your truth, not the other way around.
3. It might be a little messy. I’m years into this journey of forcing myself to say the hard thing, and I have to say that sometimes it’s a little over-dramatic, sometimes there are tears, sometimes I don’t know when to stop reiterating my point. Speaking your truth and standing up for yourself requires practice, and just like any new hobby, it’s not easy at first.
4. The more you speak up, the more you see your own value. It’s really an iterative process of defining your self-worth. As you speak up for yourself, you learn that you can. Then you learn that what you have to say is important. Then you learn that your inner workings are just as important as everyone else. Then you begin to see opportunities for yourself that you would have never imagined previously because you see yourself as truly unique and awesome.
5. Start small. You don’t have to start with the conversation with your husband that always seems to go unspoken or confronting the coworker that you’ve hated since July of 2019. Start by saying something in a meeting that you usually wouldn’t say. Say “no” to something that you actually don’t want to do but would usually agree to because you want to be agreeable. Go easy on yourself and celebrate each incident of open speaking!

Think of a conversation that you’ve been pretending to have with someone else for the last few days/weeks/years. Why do you keep re-playing this hypothetical conversation in your head instead of having it with the person? Try having it. I’ve spent the last several weeks cranking on a couple of hard conversations that I was too scared to have. I finally forced myself to initiate both conversations. Was I nervous? Yes. Did it come out exactly as I wanted it to? No. Did I survive? Yes! And I also have an enduring bond with the people that I had these conversations with because we have deepened the trust and honesty between us.