To get what you want, try shutting up
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. To get what you want, try closing your mouth. A well-deployed silence can radiate confidence and connection.
The trouble is, so many of us are awful at it. We struggle to sit in silence with others, and rush to fill the void during a pause in conversation. We want to prove we’re smart or get people to like us, solve the problem or just stop that deafening, awkward sound of nothing.
The noise of social media and constant opinions have us convinced we must be louder to be heard. But do we? “I should just shut up," Joan Moreno, an administrative assistant in Spring, Texas, often thinks while hearing herself talk. Still, she barrels on, giving job candidates at the hospital where she works a full history of the building and parking logistics.
She slips into a monologue during arguments with her husband, even when there’s nothing good left to say. She tries to determine, via a torrent of texts, if her son is giving her the silent treatment. (Turns out he just had a cold.) “I should have just held it in," she thinks afterward.
We often talk ourselves out of a win. Our need to have the last word can make the business deal implode or the friend retreat, pushing us further from people we love and things we want. “Let your breath be the first word," advises Jefferson Fisher, a Texas trial lawyer who shares communication tips on social media.
The beauty of silence, he says, is that it can never be misquoted. Instead, it can act as a wet blanket, tamping down the heat of a dispute. Or it can be a mirror, forcing the other person to reflect on what they just said.
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