Tough time listening to myself

[redpurse]

Does anyone else have a tough time listening to what is coming out of your own mouth when your talking to people? I get told that I’ve already said the same thing twice or when i get done talking i want to make sure that a certain detail was mentioned that already has been. Also when talking about a color or a direction I may say the wrong thing but would swear up and down I said it correctly. Very frustrating for me and definately for my family and friends. Any suggestions?

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[phoenixmagicgirl]

You’re not alone. I tend to repeat a lot of what I say, it’s very frustrating.  I hope that helps…

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[MarieAngell]

@Redpurse, repeating myself and unwittingly giving the wrong information are 2 of my many problems in conversation.

I don’t have any perfect solutions, especially for mispeaking,  because sometimes that just happens, apparently (people do that to me all that time).

One thing I’m trying to do is not rush into an answer. This has helped me a little bit sometimes. I can’t always remember to take a second and keep my brain from going boing-boing-boing.

I’m notorious for being too detailed, and I’m trying to say less and let people ask questions. That’s moderately effective, again, when I can manage to do it.

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[haraldbenz]

me too … me too

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[Blue Yugo]

Yes and yes…  It’s worse when I’m tired.  There’s times I realize I’ve been speaking a while and I wonder if I’m even speaking English or have any clue what I’m saying.  Not only when I’m tired, but if my attention is derailed by too much noise, a nearby loud voice or music, etc.  A mouth in motion tends to stay in motion.

One thing I find my brain echoing for me on my good days when I can suspend the chatter is, “You have nothing to say, stop talking.”  I hear it in a Canadian actor’s voice who said it because I got it programmed into my head years ago, and I assigned it a practical use.  I find it useful to latch onto things in other people’s voices saying advice because tricking the brain into accepting it from an external source mimics someone telling me to shut up with all the emotional pain that goes along with someone actually doing so.  I don’t always follow my advice or remember to “listen” to that line, but when I do, it’s a mini triumph.

One other success I tend to have with a practice I adopted more recently is to preface things I say to people with “Feel free to stop me if I’ve said this before….”  To get in the habit of saying that, say it more often than you really need to so maybe you can program your thought stream to remember to say it.  Don’t take offense if the person says “Yes, you’ve told me that a million times!”  Or more often they might just be nice and remind you that you already said something.

Hope you find some of this useful or inspiring to apply to the matter as you experience it.

– Viv

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[Patte Rosebank]

Have you tried recording yourself, and listening to it?

I know it’s really hard for most people to do, but it’s the absolute best way to really observe yourself from the outside, to see yourself as others do.  Whenever I perform, I always try to get video footage of my performance, so I can see what I’m doing right and what needs work.

When you listen to a recording of yourself, you’ll notice your speed, tone, expression, and whether there are certain words or phrases that you keep using over & over…especially the filler-sounds (um, uh, eh?, you know, like, basically, well, know what I’m sayin’)  You’ll start counting how many of them you say, and how often.

You’ll notice them so much, that you’ll stop using them, AND you’ll notice when someone else uses them a lot.  I once saw a really bad stand-up comic who used the F-word (or variations of it) approximately every 6 words.  Long before the end of his set, the word had ceased to have any meaning.  As had his set.

Instead of using filler-words, I learned to slow down (admittedly, sometimes only slightly) and pause (ditto), to collect my thoughts and find the right words.

The second-most important thing I learned from broadcasting class is that it’s better to pause for a moment, than to use a filler-word.  (And, hey, it might actually give someone else a chance to say something!)

The most important thing I learned from broadcasting class is that the camera is ALWAYS on, and the mic is ALWAYS live, so be careful what you say or do when you’re near one of them.  (Unfortunately, every so often, a person in the public eye forgets this rule.)

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