Speak Now or Overthink Later

In this episode, we’re diving into the power of clear and confident communication—because mind reading isn’t a love language. 

From taking ownership of your words to stopping the cycle of assumptions, we’re talking about how to say what you mean (without spiraling later). 

You’ll learn what good communication actually looks like, why people misunderstand each other, and how to start using your voice like the self-worth queen you are. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Here's a here's a manual on how to speak to Jay. Assumptions is the killer of communication. Good communicators are normally people that give a shit. Communication is a form of self-love and self-respect.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Wake Up Worthy. I am your host, Jade. Thank you so much for tuning in this week.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Today we're gonna talk about something that shapes every relationship, whether that's romantic, friendships, your family, your coworkers, and that's communication. The kind that's clear, honest, and it's yours to own. I guess this topic really matters, especially for your self-worth, your confidence. It's good to understand that communication is forever evolving. It's a skill that you will never get perfect, and you should always be adapting. It really depends on who you're communicating with, whether like what you change within your communication and how you adapt your style of communication. However, there will always be a foundation of your prep your preferred communication for yourself, and that's how you give communication and how you receive communication. I'm gonna be taking you through really important points throughout, including what communication is, I guess the dangers of assumptions, different communication styles, and I just want to clarify as well what good communication is. Quote unquote good, open to interpretation. How to practically communicate. And I guess you guys can reflect after this in terms of what are your communication habits? How do you communicate? Have you been communicating efficiently? Is it good enough? What can you improve? How can you improve? And then some extra resources for you guys to take away and think about. So I want to preface by saying that you need to take responsibility for your voice. Communication isn't about talking and having your say. That's not all it is. Obviously, that's a very important part of communicating, but it's about taking ownership and clarity around your communication and how you're communicating. What we learn in coaching is outstanding communication is listening without the intent to respond. So if you're the person that's listening, if you have internal dialogue that's already thinking about how you want to reply and what you want to say, you're not actively listening. You are not being a good communicator. So two sides of communication, one is actively listening, and the other is taking ownership on how you communicate, how you speak, the way that you say your words, taking ownership on how it's maybe coming across to the other person. How are they going to receive this? How are they going to interpret what I'm saying? Am I saying it clearly? Things like that. So the a lot of what people don't understand is assumptions will kill communication. And we will go into it this next in a little bit more depth. But taking responsibility for your communication and your voice comes down to not assuming that the other person will get it, quote unquote. They're not gonna get it. So say what you mean, not what you hope they'll pick up on. Be absolutely transparent and honest. The best communication is honest communication. Leave no gray area where you hope that they'll figure it out on their own. Leave no gray area where it can be misinterpreted. Just say what you fucking mean. Say what's on your mind respectfully. That's a whole other side of it. But don't never assume that the person can read your mind or understand or get what you're saying. Every single person operates differently. So a big part of communication is teaching people how to treat you. And the way that you do that is clearly expressing your needs, your boundaries, what you do like, what you don't like, what you value. And especially when people are just getting to know you and in the early stages of relationships, people don't know what you like. They don't know how to treat you or how to behave around you. And you have to communicate and articulate that clearly. You're pretty much telling them here's a here's a manual on how to speak to Jade. Here's a manual on how to treat and behave around Jade. Here are my boundaries. So unless you're communicating that effectively, you have to take responsibility and ownership that the other person may not be aware of that because you should be communicating it. Never assume people know. Biggest takeaway from this first point is if you don't own your voice, someone will define it for you. Someone will speak for you. Someone will assume on your behalf. Someone will tell your narrative. Take ownership back of your voice and communicate better. Communication is the first step in being aligned with yourself, feeling heard, putting yourself out there, understanding who you are and valuing yourself and your self-worth starts with communication. You are your own biggest cheerleader. And if you're not communicating yourself and speaking for yourself on behalf of yourself, you are leaving yourself open to criticism and being hurt and being let down. Speak up for yourself and improve your communication. Let's go into the dangers of assumption. I will say this hand on heart, like the similar saying where they say that comparison is the thief of thief of comparison is the thief of joy. Assumptions is the killer of communication. No one can read your mind. No one can read your mind. I think a lot of us go wrong. We have this narrative in our head and we play out these scenarios, and we assume we know what the other person's thinking. We assume the other person knows how we feel and are thinking and have chosen to ignore it anyway. That's a huge assumption. Unless you communicate effectively, and unless you hear both sides, and unless you talk and speak up about what you do and don't need, you're assuming on both sides. Assumptions are unspoken expectations. And assumptions always lead to disappointment because you're leaving yourself open for assumption. You have not been clear in what you need and what. It's almost like there's this mind reading myth, right? Well, I thought that you meant this. You thought. So you assumed, you assumed that I was aware of this. You assumed you knew what you were thinking and feeling. You assumed that I had already done this or thought this. Assumption will kill communication. How many times have you guys been in an argument, like in a relationship or with a friend, and you're both quiet, you're ignoring each other, you go days without speaking because I can't believe that she didn't show up at this thing, or I can't believe that she's been saying this about me when you haven't actually communicated to the other person and checked in and gone, hey, like what's your side of things? How are you feeling? How did we get to this point? Because there's always two different sides. What's that age-old saying is there's your side, my side, and then the actual truth in the middle. And to get to that truth in the middle, communication, no assumptions, open communication, honest communication, meet in the middle for the truth. And that's not to say that you will always be on the same page as the other person because people interpret things differently, people communicate differently, it'll never be perfect. But there are ways to comfortably and easily communicate so there's less friction, less surprises, less upset, less disappointment because you're constantly learning, right? There can be different communication styles. So I guess, you know, passive, aggressive, passive, aggressive, and then assertive. Now, a lot of people don't understand the difference between assertiveness and then people can come off as rude. There's a huge difference between someone being assertive. Assertiveness comes from the confidence and self-worth to speak your truth or say what's on your mind. But I guess you have to to be assertive requires that environment of comfort and no judgment. Definitely in relationships and friendships. But I guess there's that fine line for assertiveness where people can come off as cocky or aggressive or dominant. The dominant communication being people talk over you, people don't hear you clearly, people gaslight you. That would be leaning more toward aggressive communication or perhaps passive aggressive communication as well. And then the passive communication being not really speaking about what's on your mind because you don't feel heard, perhaps, or not speaking your mind, passive in terms of not speaking up or not speaking your truth, going with the flow, like people pleasers, would be more passive communication styles. And I guess through no fault of through no fault of our own or anyone's is depending on your environment and who you're around, but also what communication skills you have, do you actually understand how to move from passive communication to assertive communication? Assertive being ideal, right? Do you have the tools and the environment to be in an assertive communication space? Or have you been brought up or are you in a relationship that only requires passive or aggressive communication? For some of us, if you were brought up in an environment where, you know, be seen and not heard as a child, or you were told to kind of keep your emotions and your thoughts to yourself, or you had this feeling growing up, or in the environment that it's better to keep your mouth shut, don't rock the boat. A lot of people think that if they communicate or say how they feel, it it just automatically means there's going to be conflict. That's why a lot of people don't communicate because they're like, oh, it's better and easier just to not say anything. Wrong. Incorrect. Good communication doesn't mean that there has to be disgruntlements or arguments, right? So a lot of people stray away from it. Oh, it's just easier, you know, keep the peace, keep my mouth shut, which is absolutely not the case. And that's where that passive communication comes into it. The assumption or the ideology that speaking means conflict is absolutely incorrect, and people need to move past that. If you're communicating effectively, then you're doing it assertively, and it's good communication. You are supposed to, like it's okay to have different opinions, you just need to communicate them. It's okay to feel differently and think differently, but communication and meaning in the in the middle is where that assertiveness comes into play. Then we look into, you know, each person interprets tonality differently, each person interprets body language and words differently. Some people swear, some people don't. Communication can be based around their belief systems and their ideologies and how they were raised and culture, and so much goes into it. And if you're not communicating where you're coming from and why and how, that's where assumption comes in because not everyone thinks like you, not everyone was raised like you, not everyone has the same skill or education level as you. That's why communication's really difficult over text, I think, because a huge part of communication is reading body language, is hearing someone's tonality. You can misinterpret and assume that someone is speaking completely in a different way or saying something in a completely different way just because you can't hear their tonality. And because you can't hear their tonality, you are assuming or you're trying to make sense of what's being said in your own interpretation and the missing gap of lack of tonality, lack of visual body language cues, you have to fill the gaps yourself, and that's where that misinterpretation happens. So obviously, there's not always going to be an opportunity for face-to-face communication or over the phone communication, but ideal communication comes down to being present, seeing body language, hearing tonality, things like that. Picking up on little cues in body language shifts, if it shifts in body language, shifts in tonality, right? Especially if there's that different upbringing or in some cases trauma will definitely change how you perceive communication and how people are talking to you, because that's just your view, unfortunately. Your view and your map of the world is based off of trauma or something that's significant happened in your life. You will that's why everyone interprets communication differently. Because we all have different things that have brought us to this place. You don't have control over why you communicate like this or what has happened to you in your life for you to think this way, therefore communicate and interpret others' communication this way. But what you can control is improving that skill of communication and improving your understanding of others and that open-mindedness to connect and understand people in different ways. If you do that, then your communication gets better. Good communication has to have that open-mindedness. If we want to establish what quote-unquote good communication is, it can be clear, respectful, timely, and aligned with your truth. When we say timely, this is something that some people may not always agree on. Some people, if let's say you've had an argument for whatever reason, some people's ideology of timely communication and talking things through, they need that break. They need that time to sit with those thoughts and process what's happened and then communicate effectively, which is great because we often don't want to communicate from that place of emotion, especially if we're angry or upset. It's harder to process your thoughts and therefore harder to articulate what you actually think or want to say or interpret. And on the other hand, some people are like, you know, they're saying, I can't go to bed, we can't go to bed angry. Like we have to sort it out, right? And communication for both people, there needs to be respect for how people communicate differently. But how do we also meet in the middle and make this work? And that's how do we make this? How do we mesh this? How do we mesh this and make it work for both of them? Right? A huge part of communication is listening. And if you don't get that right in the first place, like your active listening skills, it doesn't matter what you say. Both people need to feel heard, both people need to actually have a safe space to communicate without judgment or interruptions or assumptions. So listening is just as important as talking. There's a two-way street for both. Both people speak, both people have to feel listened to. And that's active listening, not just being quiet whilst you're thinking about what you want to say to the other person. I think there's there's a power in asking clarifying questions instead of one, assuming, but two, reacting. And reacting, not reacting is can be very difficult, especially if you're like a fiery emotional person. But this is where not assuming comes into play. They've said something and you feel like you're possibly interpreting it the way that it wasn't intended, or you don't actually understand what they're trying to say. Instead of assuming or reacting, ask more questions. Can you can you elaborate or can you tell me what you mean when you said this? Give me an example. Or I don't quite understand and I want to understand further where you're coming from or how this side went for you. Like, what's your side of things? How did it make you feel? How have I contributed to making you feel like this? More questions. Questions in communication are good because what does questions do? It takes out that space for assumption. Because we're not filling the gaps for each other in our own minds. You're asking more questions because you have to base it on facts, not your both of your individual thoughts. What some of my clients say, what I've kind of taught them to think in the moment, is when something happens, we kind of spiral in our mind, right? Like think of the worst case scenario. We often play out these scenarios in our mind and we're trying to interpret or assume what the other person is thinking, how we got to this, oh, they're a whole person, blah, blah, blah. If you feel like an emotional reaction, you can always base it on, is this based on a thought or is this fact? Like, has this person actually said these words that have set you off? Or did you assume the meaning of their words? Did you assume their language? Did you assume a scenario based on one thing that they've said, right? So that's a good way to kind of bring yourself down and get that clarity and good communication. Is this based on thought, like your own thoughts, or is this based on actual fact? Facts that have happened, things that have been said, the things that have been done, right? That's a good way to kind of manage it. And encouraging and inviting the difference between responding and reacting, which is very difficult when it's like emotional communication, like during a fight, obviously emotional creatures were going to react. But um, a lot of people are like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to fight with you. But it communication doesn't always have to be a fight or conflict. Like two adults can have different ideas, different opinions, and respond to each other and expand each other's thoughts and ideas and spaces that they're in and understanding of the scenario without reacting. Like a reactiveness, that's something I definitely am working on for sure. Um, is like exploding with emotion and going from zero to a hundred really quickly rather than listening, hearing it out, staying calm, and then responding. Responding without yelling or having a screaming match, right? I think good communication, if done very well, I guess, can sound very clinical, but it's calmness is what it really is. Like it's it can be slow. And it is really hard because being human beings, we're obviously emotional creatures, and the ability to subside that emotion while still honoring that you are feeling that emotion as a trigger for a reason. Feeling that emotion, pausing, what did what the hell was just said to me and what does it mean to me? And what am I gonna do about it? This is like a quick instant feeling thing where your your practical communication will come into play and help you using my statements because you like when you're talking or you're communicating, it's always during an argument that it's most difficult, right? So when you're communicating, the assumptions that come into play is often like we're referencing how someone else has shown up or how someone else is feeling or you know what they said. So it's definitely better to just use I statements and reference yourself because that is fact. You're unless you're talking about someone else's thoughts, that's an assumption because you don't know. You don't know what's in their head. That's why we're communicating. So using I statements, like I feel instead of blame. Blame is a big one that comes into play with conflict normally, and mirroring, mirroring back what you've heard. Doing this is super powerful because again, listening is such a big part of communication. So if you're repeating back exactly what someone has just said to you, it's like they get this sense of, oh great, like they understand me. I have I feel heard and seen. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're agreeing with them. That is not agreement. That's acknowledging I hear you, I see you, and you're you're repeating it back so that it's absolutely clear. Absolutely clear. You know, hey, this is how I've interpreted what you've just said. What you've said is this. Is that correct? Like, have I understood, have I misunderstood that? Are we not on the same page here? And it definitely gives you both that space to go, not really, let me elaborate further, or yeah, thanks for listening, 100%. Going back to the topic of active listening, pausing before responding, especially when emotions are high. And hand on heart, this is something that I've not nailed myself and probably won't. Not blaming my ADHD, but it's a part of it, is how do we, as emotional creatures, honor the feelings that are coming up for us? Because what I what I teach and what I believe in is that emotions are triggers. Emotions are triggers for something. So how do you honor that trigger and how do you honor the emotion that's coming up? But feel it, park it, and respond instead of react. When I find out, I'll let you know. Because I don't know. But practical communication does need that pause before responding when it comes to like big emotions and reactions, right? And part of practical communication as well is getting comfortable with the silence. Space often leads to clarity, space leads to more room to share, more room for support, more room for understanding. So a lot of people get really uncomfortable with silence, and that's how interruption happens. We're talking over each other. Ah, fuck, there's a there's a silent awkward pause, or no one Talking right now, there's no noise. Let me just quickly fill the gap. And that's where we start talking shit. That's where we say unnecessary things. That's where we light the fucking fire that's already going on, right? So get comfortable with those silent pauses, those, that, that room for pause. So taking on board everything, the next step would be to reflect and audit your communication habits. Like how have you shown up up until this point? Or if you want to reference one scenario or example for yourself, how have you been showing up communication-wise to contribute to this argument or to contribute to this disagreement or whatever you want to call it? You know, uh, were you clear or were you vague when expressing your thoughts and what you need and your boundaries? Because remember, we're going back to the importance of taking ownership with your communication. You can't change how other people communicate, but you are responsible for how you communicate. That is the one thing that's in your control to change. There's no use worrying or trying to change how other people do it. You just need to take full responsibility and ownership in terms of how you communicate. How are you showing up? How did you express yourself? And is it good? Does it need work? How could you have done it differently? That is the one thing that you can and should focus on. Because your communication can only get better from here. If you care enough about it and you already have awareness of room for improvement with your communication, then it can only get better. And for it to get better, you need to acknowledge how you are doing it currently. Are you avoiding hard conversations to keep the peace, right? Happy wife, happy life, what do they call it? So, um, and again, the the listening prompts. Are you listening to respond or are you listening to understand? Are you already trying to think in your head while they're talking what you want to say next? Quiet in the mind, listen, be present, listen to, understand, not respond. Think about the last few disagreements you've had or miscommunication or some situation that you were in and really think about those things. Were you clear? We're taking ownership here. Were you clear when you were communicating? Did you assume what the other person was saying? Was your thought patterns or your your understanding of the situation based on your thoughts or fact? Thoughts or fact? And have you been showing up as a passive communicator or have you been showing up as an assertive communicator? And God forbid, have you been showing up as an aggressive communicator? Really kind of take that time to think about everything that's happened up until this moment in terms of communication situations and audit it. Really have a think about how you've shown up. What's your behavior around communication and what are you going to do differently moving forward? How are you going to change things? And just to remind you, like, communication is a skill. It's not a personality trait. Like, none of us are born out the womb being fantastic communicators. And like I said in the beginning, I don't think communication is never a skill that you will perfect. It's constantly evolving, it's constantly changing. It needs to adapt depending on who you're talking to and where you are. But there are so many things you can do to have better communication. And good communicators are normally people that give a shit about how they're communicating. They want to improve, they want to do better. They realize that, hey, like maybe my shit communication has affected things in the past, like relationships or opportunities or friends. So good communicators are normally people that have taken the time to take ownership for their own stuff, their own scenarios, their own experiences, and gone, I want to do better. I want to be better. How can I improve? How do how have I shown up and what can I do differently? If you come into it with the understanding that communication is a form of self-love and self-respect, are you using your voice for yourself? Are you your biggest cheerleader? Are you standing up for yourself? Are you communicating your boundaries properly, your needs properly? If not, let's work on it. Let's fucking get better because no one can speak for you, and you definitely don't want people to speak for you. So if that's a good indication and motivate motivator for you to improve your communication, is it's a form of self-love. How much are you respecting yourself right now? If you're not communicating greatly, it's probably a sign that you should step it up. Respect yourself more, like you are worthy of good conversations, good communication. Like I guess a good way to think of it is if they can't read your mind, give them your voice. Tell them exactly what it is. What do we say? Give them that manual. Where in your life do you need to speak more clearly and be more honest with yourself, but also other people? All right, guys. That is it. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. Jump on into wherever you're listening. Give it five stars, because why not? Hit the links in the description if you want to give me a follow. If you want to bounce some ideas, if you want to reach out, if you need support, all the links are in the description. Hit that bell wherever you're listening if you want to be notified of new episodes. And thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Bye.