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Personality
How to Talk: 8 Tips for Doing It Right
Good talking is not about personality but skills: Here's what to do
Posted January 21, 2018
It doesn't take much for Jake and Chloe's conversations to quickly turn into heated arguments. Within minutes they are dragging up the past, bringing up examples of injustice and unfairness, stomping and banging their fists. Finally one of them storms out.
Yes, you know how to talk. This is about talking in a productive way, especially in those emotional conversations that come up in our intimate relationships. Here’s a list of tips to help keep your conversations on track and out of the emotional weeds:
Part 1: Starting Out
#1: Decide where you want to go
There are obviously different types of conversations with different purposes: It may be about venting and just having the other person listen while you get things off your chest. It may be more about catching up — your day, my day — connecting or reconnecting. It may be about solving a specific problem.
A conversation is like driving a car and generally a good idea of knowing where you want to go before you start. Take a minute and ask yourself what is the purpose of the conversation, and then let the other person know — "I just need to vent about my job," or "Here's a problem I'd like your input on"; "I want to explain why I got so upset last night." Because it's all too easy for guys to fall into the fixing, rather than listening mode, by being upfront about the focus of the conversation helps him know what you need and don't need.
#2. Stay on track
But the other part of driving a car is keeping it on the road. If the conversation does have a clear focus, do you best to stay on track. Resist your own urge to veer too far off into backstory, sidebar topics, past examples. Focus on the present, take the mindset that you are at a staff meeting at work. Move toward your goal. Usually less is more.
#3. Track the emotional climate
But while you are talking, also track the emotional climate — to the rising of emotion, a shutting down, or sounding defensive. The volume will go up; there will be an edge to your or the other person’s voice; the conversation will switch to other topics, to the past, in an effort to stack up more information to make your case. This is where Jake and Chloe start to get into trouble. All this information ramp-up only fuels their emotions, rather than helps solve the problem. The conversation is starting to go off the road.
It's time to put on the brakes. The problem in the room is no longer what you were talking about but about the emotion — yours or the other person’s -- and it's the emotion that you now need to fix.
Part 2: Emotional First Aid
#4. Talk about the emotion
As soon as you can tell the emotional climate is heating up, stop talking about the topic, resist the urge to heap on more info. Instead try and get the conversation back on track by talking about the emotion: "Wait a second," you say as calmly as possible. "You seem to be getting upset. What’s going on?" or "Hold on. I can tell I'm getting upset; give me a minute to calm down." Hold up your hand and take some deep breaths.
#5. Talk soft emotions
Once you’ve moved the conversation off the content and onto the emotional problem in the room, try and avoid using words like anger, irritation, defensiveness, control — these will usually just make the other person more so.
Instead, you want to talk the language of soft emotions because these soft emotions are really what are underneath those stronger ones. A quick list of translations:
Control = anxiety / worry
The more demanding or controlling the other person sounds, more anxious and worried he probably is. Rather than yelling about his control, say instead: "What are you worried about?" in a calm tone in order to tap into the underlying emotion.
Defensiveness = criticism
Here the other person is both agitated and ramping up the facts to make his case. Say: "I’m not trying to be critical, I just don’t understand……" again in a calm tone.
Angry = hurt
Say: "I can tell you are upset. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings." Now give her the space to vent a bit more; stay quiet until she begins to calm down.
Use this same soft-emotion language yourself to help the other person understand what is emotionally happening with you: "I’m frustrated because I’m worried…."
#6. And if you both are upset, and can't rein it in, or if you are feeling emotionally abused...
The car is off the road, way into the emotional weeds. Stop the car!
Here you call a time-out: "I’m getting upset" or "We're getting upset" (not "You’re getting upset": If you say that the other person will likely scream that he is not). "I need a break. Let’s come back in a half hour."
Now the other person may try and drag you back into the conversation. Do what you need to do to resist.
Part 3: Return and Repair
#7. Circle back
Now you come back after a half hour and try the conversation again. If you are still upset, if the other person is still upset, stop again. You are waiting for your emotional brains to calm down so your rational brains can kick in.
What you don’t want to do is come back, say you are sorry, but bypass solving the problem — you want to go back to the topic them and finish your conversation. If you can’t, even with long waiting, write a letter or email (No texts!) to explain your softer emotions, your ideas. Move towards your goal.
At some calm point also have a separate conversation about conversation: Here Jake and Chloe come up with a plan for avoiding these escalating arguments: "Let's agree not to try to talk about important stuff late at night but instead during the day on the weekend"; "Let's come up with a hand signal we can use to let each other know that we're getting upset and need to stop."
#8. Be patient with yourself
Learning to talk better is not about personality but about learning new skills — learning to redirect your focus and your brain, much like you eventually were able to do when learning to drive a car, play a musical instrument, or learn a new sport or language. It will feel awkward, you will not do it as well as you hoped, you will fall back into old habits. That’s fine. You do the best you can do each time.
Just keep moving forward.
