Have you ever experienced a situation where you feel that no matter what your level of knowledge or expertise on a certain topic is you are not being heard?

Or maybe you have felt brushed off and slightly invisible.

Whether these things occurred at school, in the work place or within your personal life, they can take a toll on your internal and external self-confidence.

While the way you feel about yourself and the way you project yourself to others can be two very different things, they are often closely connected.

The next time you are having an important conversation, think to yourself… how am I coming across right now?

There are many biases that people unknowingly place on each other that cannot be controlled, however there are certain things you can do to appear the way you want to.

Making slight changes to your vocabulary can go a long way in these situations.

Cut out the “filler words”… these are words or phrases that reduce the effectiveness of what we are trying to say. Try to get rid of these unless absolutely necessary!

Here are a couple:

• “I’m sorry”

The majority of the time that we use this phrase, we don’t actually mean it. For example, have you ever said: “I’m sorry I have a question.”?

• “Try to”/ “Plan to”/ “Meant to”

These are stop action verbs that automatically indicate failure. They also subconsciously trigger yourself and others to believe that these actions are unlikely to take place

Ultimately, these words undermine your authority and ability. Although they appear to be innocent and unharmful, they can have a big impact on the way you and others view yourself.

Hopefully this got you thinking about your language and how it could be working against you when it could be working for you!

Be confident and be certain!

Let us know if you think of other ways we commonly undermine ourselves without knowing it!