By Royane Real

Author of   “Your Guide to Making Friendly Conversation”   

Do you often have the problem of thinking that everything you say sounds stupid?  There is a cure for this condition, and it involves not just improving your conversation ability, but it requires that you change the way you think about yourself.

If you fear sounding stupid, the real problem could be that you have very low self esteem, and this low opinion of yourself needs to be fixed at the same time that you are trying to improve your social skills.

It is hard to get the courage to speak up in a conversation when you constantly are judging yourself and when you give yourself harsh criticisms for what you are saying. If you are convinced that everything you say is stupid, then you won't be able to believe that anyone else could like you or find you attractive.

Speaking as a formerly shy person myself who was filled with a lot of social anxiety and low self esteem, I can tell you that one of my big problems in making conversation used to be my constant dread of sounding stupid when I talked to other people.

At night I used to replay all my conversations over and over in my mind, trying to figure out what I should have said instead.  I would criticize myself for anything I had said if I thought it wasn’t smart enough, or not confident enough.  Then I would also criticize myself if I thought I had sounded too smart or too confident.  Sometimes

I just criticized everything so I could be sure that nothing got missed!

As you can imagine, and as I eventually found out, criticizing yourself and worrying about sounding stupid is not really an effective strategy for improving your conversational performance or for developing self confidence. 

If this is the way you react to your attempts to make conversation you need to try a different strategy. 

You need a better strategy for making conversation and for treating yourself better.  If you can put some steps in place to improve your self confidence and to stop the self criticism, your conversation skills will have a chance of improving.  You might even benefit from getting some good therapy from an effective therapist.

From personal experience I can tell you that overcoming a fear of sounding stupid when you talk with other people is not something you can cure overnight.  You will probably have to work on it for several months at least, trying to overcome some of the bad habits that have kept you a prisoner of your fears. 

These are your fears of being less than perfect, your fears of what other people may think of you, and your fears of what you think of yourself.

When you notice that you are being critical of yourself, tell yourself to stop!  Look for ways to argue against your negative statements.  Look for more realistic statements to put in the place of your negative ones.

There is a type of therapy called cognitive therapy which teaches very effective methods of dealing with a variety of problems including shyness, low self esteeem and depression.

( The above introductory comments were written by author Royane Real .)

Learn to Make conversation Effortlessly!

By Royane Real

Are you tired of being tongue tied or not knowing what to say to people?  Would your life be better if you could make conversation more easily? 

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