How to say what you really think

Have you ever wanted to say what you really think to someone but were afraid they would get mad at your or reject you? If so, you are like most people who have difficulty being assertive or saying what you really think to others. Now saying what you really think can mean different things. It can mean spouting our opinion on some subject. It can mean telling someone off when we are mad at them. Or it can mean telling someone we care about something that we need to tell them but really dont want to because of fear.

Our fears come about due to several factors. First we might be afraid that the other person wont understand what we are trying to communicate to them. This is a common fear but can be overcome by being clear in our message and having the courage to say what needs to be said (more about this later). A second fear is that the other person will get mad at us. This is a natural fear and if you are like most people, you want to try and maintain the peace especially in the relationships that are most important to you. However, maintaining the peace can be a dysfunctional, non-assertive method of conflict management.

Conflict Management Strategies

In conflict resolution or conflict management situations, people generally use one of five strategies. The aggressive (or competing) strategy is an authoritarian approach when someone yells and intimidates others to get what they want. This is a bully tactic employed to accomplish a particular agenda and get others to back down. This strategy, while in some ways accomplishes what the person wants, it can deeply hurt the other person and rarely contributes to healthy interpersonal relationships. Avoidance strategies are when people avoid conflict at all costs. They kind of go and hide away for a while or pretend nothing is wrong. Again, this rarely solves the deeper issues of the conflict and resembles another dysfunctional strategy – smoothing. Smoothing (or accommodating) is when someone does whatever they can to make nice and smooth over the problems in their relationships. These people believe that making everything calm is the best method of preserving their relationship and maintaining peace. These three dysfunctional strategies are win-lose strategies -one person wins (aggressive) and the other person loses (avoidance and smoothing).

Two other strategies that are more constructive are integration (collaboration) and compromise. The integration strategy is when two people work together to find win-win solutions that can solve their problems. This comes about through dialogue  a conversation where each person is willing to hear the other person and try to see things from their perspective. Sometimes, however, there are no win-win solutions so a compromise strategy must be used. In compromise, each person gives something up (lose-lose) in order to maintain their relationship and manage the conflict. (You can find out your default strategy by taking this quiz)

Maintaining the Peace

As mentioned, we typically dont say what we really think because we feel like maintaining the peace is the best strategy. But simply maintaining the peace is either avoidance or smoothing and doesnt help to foster deeper relationships built on trust and intimacy. So how do we overcome our fear of conflict?

Get a New Perspective on Conflict

The first thing we need to do is to see conflict differently, to get a new perspective. When we typically think about conflict, we have certain perceptions based on the words or metaphors we use to describe it. We describe conflict as a war, battle, or fight. We defend our side from the other persons attacks and try to counter them with our own attacks. Well these types of words create thoughts in our minds of a particular kind. When we have underlying perceptions of conflict as a battle or fight, we should expect that those thoughts will influence our actions and how we handle conflict situations. To get away from this, we need a new metaphor  a new picture of conflict. If we understand conflict as a catalyst to greater intimacy in our relationships, that might help. Relationships without conflict plateau and can grow stale and boring. This doesnt mean we need conflict all the time, but healthy conflict in our relationships helps to propel those relationships to greater levels of intimacy and growth. We all recognize that the difficult times in our lives make us stronger and push us out of our comfort zone. This is true in our relationships as well. As a friend of mine said, there is no comfort in the growth zone and no growth in the comfort zone. Conflict is uncomfortable but it helps our relationships to grow deeper. Maybe instead of viewing conflict as a fight, we can think of it as a new dance that partners need to learn together. When learning to dance with someone for the first time we are clumsy, awkward and step on each others toes. It takes time, patience, and effort to get it right. Its the same with conflict in our relationships. The dance is never easy, but once it gets worked out, it can be incredibly beautiful.

Think of being good and not nice.

For some reason, niceness has become a sort of virtue in our culture. We want to be nice to other people and in doing so, we lose some type of authenticity. Being nice can cause us to say things that arent necessarily true – to be deceitful with others – and can cause us to be inauthentic just to keep peace and make someone feel good. Now Im not saying to be mean. We shouldnt simply go out and say whatever we want to other people without any regard for their feelings. But maybe we should think about being good to the other person. Maybe we should think about kindness as the virtue we should strive for in our relationships. Being kind and good both considers the feelings of the other person and also recognizes that we may have to say what we really think because the other person really needs to hear it. Goodness means that sometimes we need to speak the truth in love, wrapped up in words of kindness.

Have courage.

The third thing to realize when you have to say what you really think is to have courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, but it is doing what you need to do in the face of fear. When you need to say what you really think to someone  to confront them about something really important – you need to have courage. CS Lewis once said that courage is the virtue at the testing point of every other virtue. In other words, whenever we have to do something virtuous, it takes courage. It is no different in having difficult conversations in our most important relationships. Have courage in the face of your fears.

A Technique for Saying What You Really Think

One technique that you can use to help express your thoughts and feelings with others is what is called an assertive message. Assertiveness is the ability to communicate your thoughts, feelings, and emotions with confidence and skill. The assertive message technique can help you to formulate a message and give you confidence to say what you really think. Of course you will still need courage, but knowing what to say and how to say it can give you greater confidence when you need to say what you really think.

Describe a Specific Behavior

The three-part assertive message starts with a description of a specific behavior. You begin by stating, “When you do ……” and add in the specific behavior that you are wanting to confront. It is important to express the behavior specifically in a non-judgmental way. When we are general in that description, when we assign motives to the other persons behavior or judge the other person, we cause them to get defensive about their motives rather than addressing their behavior. So as an example, a good start might be something like “When you leave your clothes all over the room….”

Personalize Your Feelings

The second part of the assertive message is personalizing your feelings. After describing the specific behavior, you would say something like “I feel….” This personalization  putting things in I terms – lets the other person know in a non-threatening or non-judgmental way how you feel about their behavior. Your feelings are legitimate and it is important that you express them. So, to continue our example, the message might be something like “When you leave your clothes all over the room, I feel frustrated…” Here, it is important to use a specific word that accurately describes how you are feeling. Sometimes this can be challenging because we don’t always know how to express and/or define our feelings  we dont always have the right words to say. To help, you can use some words like, very or extremely to classify the level of your feeling if you dont have the exact word. You can say for example, Im very frustrated, or Im extremely angry to give more clarification of your feelings. This takes practice and possibly an expansion of your vocabulary to learn words that describe your feelings more accurately.

Give A Concrete Result

Finally, the third part of the message is describing a concrete result of the other persons behavior. You must tell them how their behavior is adversely affecting you. Make sure that the concrete result is not judgmental or assigning motives to their behavior. To complete our example, When you leave your clothes all over the room, I feel very frustrated because I have to pick them up and it takes time away from other things that I need to be doing.”

Let them Respond

After giving an assertive message to someone, be silent and let them respond to what you are telling them. This enables them to take responsibility for their behavior and can begin a dialogue that leads to more constructive conflict management strategies that can be either win/win (integration) or even in some cases lose/lose (compromise). However, even when you both lose in a compromise, your relationship wins. The assertive message is not a fix-all but it does provide a non-judgmental entrance into a difficult conversation that can begin the process of coming up with solutions to the problems you are experiencing in your relationships. Remember, no technique can take the place of the courage it takes to confront someone, but when you have framed a message appropriately and you know how to present it, you can have the confidence to say what you really think.