“I don’t know what to say and I don’t feel comfortable sharing my opinion. What I have to say is not valid- what is the point? Next week I have to do a presentation to the team, I am absolutely dreading it. I hate having this fear and I think I will just opt out and do nothing or maybe even stop speaking up at meetings now too.”
Does this ring true to you?
One of our greatest assets that we have is our own voice, our opinion, and our need to be heard. We all have a voice. We have words to be shared and our point of expression is rich and valuable. Your voice is valuable. Communicating from a place of clarity, open and honesty can be rare, but it can exist for you today.
We as humans must be courageous to allow ourselves to be heard. Just in the words of Jeromy Dion below, our voice is our gift.
“Your speaking voice is yours alone. It’s you- encapsulated in sound. Your voice is different from everybody else’s. conveying a unique combination of thoughts, feelings, experiences and relationships that have never before existed. All of these aspects of what it is to be you come through your voice, which is why we can feel vulnerable when we speak publicly. Our cracks, our blemishes, our insecurities- people are likely to hear them when we speak out. Then everyone will know that we aren’t perfect. Which is what allows them to connect with us in the first place – our vulnerability, our willingness to put ourselves out there and to be heard, even in all our imperfection “
Once we are heard and allow ourselves to be heard, we start to open our voice up to others while at the same time developing confidence to speak up and speak out. Voice confidence comes naturally when we start speaking and sharing more in our workplace. As you begin you might find you have spoken too much at a meeting or babbled on at a presentation, but this is ok. You have started being more vocal and given yourself opportunities to speak. You will now be able to own more structure on what you say and how you say it, the more opportunities you give yourself.
The only way to more voice confidence is to take the first step, giving yourself more opportunities to speak inside work and outside your workplace. Are you ready to start today?
If you would like some more support to continue developing confidence in your voice, check out our upcoming Online Speaking Confidence Course starting on the 6th of September 2021. Click here to find out more.
