Do you speak up or do you stay silent?

The Problem At Hand

In case you haven’t read “You Had Me At No,” or missed me talking about it, I had a bit of a breakdown in 2021. I was working full time for an animal rescue, handling a full slate of writing clients within my own business, taking care of aging parents, yada yada.

While there were so many factors at play, one of the final straws that broke my poor camel friend’s back, was a nonprofit donor management program. I was the primary user of this program in my organization, creating email marketing pieces, setting up landing pages, sending out thank you notes to donors, etc. It was a great program. A bit pricey, but user friendly, produced quality emails and web pages, and all around enjoyable to use.

And then came a shiny object.

My Executive Director decided we were paying too much for the program and found an up-and-coming company that promised ALL THE THINGS. I asked to get on a call and tour the system before we made the commitment to switch. If memory serves me right, that tour didn’t come until the decision to abandon our current ship had been made. I asked many questions and was extremely concerned with some of the answers. Features I depended on in our old program were “coming soon” with the new program. Functionality was spotty at best. I voiced my concerns – quietly, very quietly – and always finished up a consideration with “But I’ll make it work.” (More on that in a bit).

When we made the official switch, the poop hit the proverbial fan. Tasks that would take me 20-30 minutes in the old system, would take 2-3 hours and several calls with the developers who promised they were “working on it,” and had to give me a complex workaround to achieve what I was looking to do. I could’ve added “Exterminator” to my title, because I pointed out enough bugs that the software company should’ve been paying me as well. My normally busy days were now hijacked with trying to make this program work, and hunting down monthly donors who did not transfer from the old system to the new, despite what we were promised early on.

Frankly, I was losing my damn mind. When my ED suggested that I let someone else handle it, my codependency popped in and yelled, “I can do it all by myself!” like a petulant child.

I’m not going to say it’s the reason I had my breakdown, but it sure as heck didn’t help.

Asserting Your Boundaries

One aspect of healthy boundaries is standing up for yourself and speaking your mind. As I mentioned, I voiced my concerns… actually, let’s say I whispered my concerns, and always followed them up with the killer phrase, “But I’ll make it work.”

Are you experiencing something similar at work or with a personal relationship? Do you ever feel like you push down your own feelings and thoughts because you don’t want to make anyone else uncomfortable? Meanwhile, you’re squirming in your seat like a 2^nd grader who’s afraid to raise her hand and ask to go potty.

You’re not alone. For many of us, it’s a lot easier to make ourselves uncomfortable than to do anything that could possibly make someone else uncomfortable. We sacrifice the peace inside us to keep the peace around us. And as you may be noticing, you can only do this for so long before resentment bubbles up inside you.

Speak Your Mind

If you’ve spent your entire life believing that you need to be small and stay quiet, there’s hope on the horizon. Here’s a 7-step process you can follow to start speaking up at work, at home, and anywhere else you’ve allowed your voice to be quashed.

Before we dive into that process, it’s important to build up to the really important situations. You wouldn’t go from only lifting the tv remote to bench pressing 200 lb weights, right? Just like at the gym, you need to start out small to strengthen your muscles and train your voice. You can even start with strangers rather than the people close to you. For example, instead of dealing with the pain, let your massage therapist know that she’s using too much pressure.

The more you speak up for yourself (no matter the situation), the better you will get at it. Now, let’s look at a process you can follow to start speaking your mind today.

7 Steps To Speaking Up and Standing Up

Let’s look at this process through the lens of speaking up at work (even though it will work anywhere).

1. Understand your value. You were hired for a reason. Whether you came with the expertise, or you have built it through your experience in that role, there’s a good chance you know what you’re talking about and will bring value to the situation at hand. Referring back to my earlier story, I worked in that donor management system every single day. I knew what we needed and what wouldn’t work. (Spoiler alert, shortly after I left the rescue, they switched to a new donor management system. I guess I wasn’t too far off base with my concerns, after all.)

Note: If my earlier comment about Codependency hit home, know that you have value simply because you exist. You don’t have to fix everyone else’s problems and be everything to everyone, to prove you deserve oxygen.

2. Gather your thoughts and remove the emotion. Unfortunately for the Highly Sensitive People in the group (raises and waves hand frantically), sputtering out your argument through a barrage of tears, is not going to earn you any credibility with your boss (or anyone else for that matter). It’s okay to buy yourself some time, and collect yourself in your office or in the bathroom before approaching your boss with your ideas or concerns.
3. Assume that others will agree with you. While you should never go into any situation expecting to fail, there’s another reason to shift your mindset. As you read earlier, you have value. You (likely) know what you are talking about and bring an excellent point of view to the table. There’s a really good chance that your coworkers may be experiencing the same discomfort with something that’s going on, but may also be afraid to speak up.
4. Take a deep breath and present your case. Now that you’ve collected your thoughts, got your emotions in check, and assumed the best, it’s time to talk to your boss (or whoever). It may be best to do this in private depending on your how your boss handles pushback. Be respectful, clear, and confident.
5. End your sentences with a period, not a question mark. When you end your statement with an upward inflection, it sounds like you are asking for permission or agreement. You are not. You are making a statement and then you will…
6. Stop talking. When we are uncomfortable, it’s easy to keep blathering on, backtracking, and minimizing the powerful statement we started with. We can also (as I did), completely negate our concerns with a sentence like, “But I’ll make it work.” Noooooooo! Say your peace and then shush. Be comfortable with an uncomfortable silence as the other person processes the new information you’ve given them.
7. Accept that you may not get the response you are looking for. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people always did what we wanted them to do? It would also be amazing if chocolate rained down from the sky and had no calories. Neither one of those is realistic, so you need to accept that you may find your voice, speak up, stand up for yourself, and be met with crickets. If this happens, you’ll need to determine just how important the situation is to you. I talked about that last week in How Core Values Dictate Our Boundaries.

Conclusion

You’ve spent enough of your life staying quiet, keeping your thoughts to yourself, and allowing yourself to be uncomfortable because you’re too afraid to speak up. No more! There are opportunities to strengthen your boundary muscles all around you. Start small, use my 7-step process, and start standing up for what you believe in.

If you’d like more tips on how to set healthy boundaries in your personal and professional life, visit https://www.sherylgreenspeaks.com/boundary-bites/.

What’s an area in your life where you need to speak up?

About the Author

Sheryl Green is a Mental Health speaker and author who works with individuals and organizations to establish healthy boundaries to improve relationships, communication, and well-being. Her mission is to make the world a better place… one boundary at a time. Learn more about her entertaining and illuminating programs or contact her at 702.885.4309.