During my adolescent and young adult years, I found myself not being as vocal as I am now. This had a lot to do with my upbringing. Anytime someone in my community was not satisfied, it mostly ended in an argument or worse, a fight. I felt like if stating my issue or presenting my feelings to someone resulting in a scuffle, it wasn’t worth mentioning. I wasn’t a fighter but I have seen many fights in my day that escalated because of lack of communication.

Fast forward to adulthood I’ve learned that you can bring your concerns to individuals, but it all depends on how you present it. Most importantly you don’t want to be so high off emotions that the issues doesn’t get resolved. I also know I am not the only person who had challenges in this area, and so I thought it would make sense to brush up on my blogging experience and write about it.

I must say it took me some time to learn how to present my issues, and not because I was afraid or anything, but because I wanted them to get resolved and not linger. Now do I always get it right…no. But I do at least try. A lot of relationships end because of miscommunication, a lot of information is misinformed because of miscommunication. And this goes for EVERYONE, no matter your economic, race, or ethnicity. All in all, we have to learn how to communicate and speak up effectively.

4 ways to speak up effectively

Practice Assertiveness: listen, everything comes with practice. Even speaking up! One way I started being assertive is when I receive customer service. If there was something that I didn’t like, for instance if my food order was wrong, or they forgot to provide my beverage, I would let them know. I also provide compliments for anyone I see who is wearing something nice. Just speaking up in general gives you the motivation to want to speak up consistently.
Be Direct: how often are we not direct. We can fumble with our words a lot and beat around the bush. Making the person on the receiving end more confused or annoyed that you brought the conversation to their attention. That’s why it is important to practice. Write down what you want to say, and practice how you want to say it. There’s nothing wrong in doing that, if anything it can boost how you present yourself to others.
Seek Support: I am all about providing support. Talk to your friends and ask them how you can be more assertive. They know your personality best. They more than likely can provide you with feedback and let you know a thing or two about yourself.
Listen: this is a part of resolving conflict. It’s imperative to listen to the other person. They have a voice and it’s critical that it’s heard. And most importantly do not listen to respond, but listen to understand. This goes a long way!

These four tips helps me even today. I have more tips you can listen to on my podcast Going Thru W/Jamie. Speaking up is not something we are born with, it’s an action we all learned. As a child there were times when I wanted to speak up, or have spoken up and was shut down. I believe this is what inhibit me from speaking up for myself during my adolescent and early adult years. So if you have little ones, there’s a way you can teach them to be heard and vocalize how they feel. We don’t want to do a disservice to ourselves and our children. So check out the podcast and be sure to check out our magazine for more tips on better ourselves!

Let me know how you speak up when some things are not going your way. I look forward to reading them in the comments!