As I teach and consult on communication across the age spectrum, I share principles and techniques that will improve how people relate across any kind of difference -- age, culture, gender, socioeconomic level, race, neurodiversity, and more. I acknowledge that attempting these new skills often feels uncomfortable. It’s just easier to stick with what feels familiar and safe. It certainly takes less effort, but it’s a myth that the familiar is always safe.
We can’t grow if we aren’t willing to step into discomfort. Athletes know this. So do musicians.
It’s one thing to know it’s going to be uncomfortable. But getting yourself to actually do the uncomfortable – to ask questions when you’re afraid you’ll look silly, advocate for someone older or younger than you at work, or ask for a mutual mentoring relationship, for instance -- that’s a whole other thing, isn’t it?
These six tips should help move you from the knowing to the doing:
Reframe the discomfort. Researchers tell us that our brains respond to anything we perceive as any kind of danger as if it were a physical threat. But does a new way of communicating really put you in danger? Usually not. In fact, it will likely create more safety.
Could you begin to think of the feeling as akin to excitement? Picture yourself ready to hike a new trail or go on a first date. You don’t know how it will turn out, but there’s just as much chance of a positive experience as a negative one. Maybe more.
Start small. Don’t do all the uncomfortable things at once. Budget your energy. Choose one or two and practice them. Once they feel less intimidating, layer on another, and then another.
Do you know the snowball approach to paying down credit cards? First tackle the one with the smallest amount of debt. Once that’s gone, apply that amount of payment to the next one, then those two to the third, and so on. Using the same principle, once you have some comfort level with one new communication skill , you’ll be more confident with the next one.
Buddy up. Talk with a friend or colleague about places where each of you need to stretch, at work or otherwise, to learn something new or communicate in a different, more effective way. You can encourage one another by saying some form of, “You do your hard thing, I’ll do my hard thing, and we’ll share progress with each other.”
A mutual mentoring relationship is a perfect context for these types of conversations.
Get physical. Breathe, several slow ins and outs. Open your body posture. Stretch up and out. Put your feet firmly on the ground with your weight over them. Repeat if possible whenever the discomfort starts and before you enter into the new skill. Think of yourself like an athlete centering themself as they face the balance beam or the pole vault.
Normalize nonoptimal outcomes. If a communication stretch doesn’t turn out like you’d hoped or expected, it’s a learning experience, not a failure. What can you do differently next time?
Part of growth might be learning to release the expectation that you can control someone else’s response by how you communicate. None of us have that power. They are them. We are us. We are responsible for our end, not theirs.
Confess your discomfort. Actually say to the person you are trying to communicate better with something like. “I’m feeling uncomfortable because I’m not used to these types of conversations. But I want to improve our communication and understanding of each other, so I’m willing to try.”
Giving the appearance that we always have it all together does not lead to connection. Being vulnerable does. And speaking a feeling lessens its emotional intensity.
See your privilege. Privilege is the absence of a limiting factor that others experience as a condition of their life, which often goes unrecognized by those of us unaffected by it. The expectation that we should be able to remain comfortable indicates privilege.
Think about how many people in our world live in a constant state of discomfort, whether from illness or poverty or oppression or war. Surely we can take inspiration from their courage and resilience and step humbly into the hard things that are essential to our personal and professional development.
We can’t stay comfortable and grow. Babies are comfortable in the womb – until they get so big they don’t fit anymore, and they get squeezed by the most powerful muscle in a female body through a tiny opening, only to emerge into a brighter, noisier, colder, bigger world than the infant ever knew existed. If athletes stayed comfortable, they would stay at the T-ball stage. Pianists would keep playing “Chopsticks.”
Living things must grow -- or die. For the life of your relationships, your dreams, your professional trajectory, your community, I encourage you to brave the discomfort as you hone your interpersonal and intergenerational communication skills.
I would welcome hearing your perspective and experiences with organizational or personal communication. Let me know if I can help. Leave a comment or message me to start the conversation.