Have You Heard Yourself Lately?

April 29, 2009 by Sandrine
Filed under Strategies

Do you even know what you sound like? Have you heard yourself lately? Do you know what you say and how it comes across to others? Are you aware of your good and bad speaking habits?

Most of us will not leave the house without visually checking ourselves in the mirror. It does not matter how many times we have worn an outfit, and even though we have not changed the way we brush our hair, or apply our makeup in years, we will still double check ourselves in the mirror.

Yet most of us go out with our mouth unchecked. I am not talking about brushing out teeth. I am talking about the words that we’ll wear. We are used to speaking in certain ways. We have also picked up along the way speech habits; some good, others not so good.

The problem is that we are not aware of them. We believe what we hear is what we say, or worse what other people hear. There could be some words and speech patterns that you use without realizing that hey are very costly to you. Since there is no mirror to check your words, how do you do?

• Record yourself in many different settings such as at work, at home, among friends, and listen to hear how you talk to different people.
• Call yourself and live voice messages. Call people to whom you have left voice messages and ask them if you can listen to hear how you come across.
• Try new way of speaking in a non threatening environment and record yourself so that you can compare different styles.
• When listening to your recordings, pay attention to the exchange with other people’s voices to hear how they react as you speak.

If you have never heard yourself, you will be very surprised by how you sound and how you come across. You also be surprised to realize that some people don’t like certain things you say or the way you say them by noticing for the first time the changes in their voices.

Do not feel discouraged; knowing where you are is essential to getting where you want to go. This exercise is simply to gather feedback so that you can improve. Remove yourself emotionally from the experience, learn from it and become the best you can.

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