Um, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you'd want to read about this thing we women tend to do when we talk. It's this way we have of speaking where we kind of, like, put ourselves down, I think, without realizing it? Do you know what I mean? Oh, listen, this was probably a really stupid idea. It was just a thought, but jeez, I'm rambling. You must be so ready to, I don't know, turn the page, right?
Do yourself a favor and read on. Because if you're like most women, you regularly use some of the self-defeating speech habits illustrated above. That means you've been known, for instance, to tell others you have an idea, but that it's probably really lame - then you apologize for your really lame idea. You also may "kind of" give your needs short shrift (as in, "Gee, I was kind of hoping for an apology from you"). Sound familiar?
"Run my picture with this article," my friend Marion said. "Because I do all those things. I could make an 'L' for 'loser' on my forehead with my fingers while you take the picture."
No, Marion, we won't do that. But the fact is, using self-deprecating words does lead people to think - and treat you as if - you're less capable than you really are, says psychiatrist Anna Fels, M.D., author of Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives. And then you start to think, Hey, maybe I'm not really that smart or that good at stuff. It's a pretty lousy chain reaction.
So let's break that chain, shall we? Read on and learn how to ditch the wimpy-sounding words and phrases that may be holding you back so you can say your piece with confidence and show the world - and, really, yourself - how strong and self-possessed you truly are.
"This is probably a stupid idea, but..."
File this mega-negative phrase alongside "I don't know if this is worth mentioning, but..." and "I have a feeling this won't work, but...." Why do we predict such doom for our ideas before they even leave our lips? "When girls are growing up, they learn that other girls won't like them if they act as if they're better than other people or as if their ideas are better than anyone else's," explains linguist Deborah Tannen, author of I Only Say This Because I Love You. "They learn that there's a social value to downplaying their ideas."
Fast-forward to adulthood: You sit down at a table with a group of people, you want them to like you, and so you unconsciously soft-pedal your suggestion for, say, improving the way the neighborhood block-association meetings run. Your intro: "I'm no expert, and it's probably obvious to everyone but me, but what if we...?" Trouble is, while you may succeed in getting people to like you because you're so nonthreatening, you've also made it far less likely that they'll really listen to anything you say because you've devalued your comments, explains Fels: "Then a man offers the same idea in a non-self-deprecating way, and suddenly everybody hears it and says, 'Whoa! That's a great idea!'"
Instead of trampling on your ideas, give them a simple, neutral intro such as, "I have an idea," "Here's my thought," or "What if we...?" You don't have to "sell" your idea if that's not your style - but you don't have to handicap it, either.
"Like"
You can thank the Beat generation of half a century ago for launching the popularity of this little word (as in, "Like, wow!"). These days it's used as a substitute for "said" ("I was like, 'Get out of here!'"), to soften what you say ("I make, like, a decent salary"), and as a filler ("I went, like, to the mall, and it was, like, so crowded").
With its hipster image, "like" tries to pass itself off as cool, but it's a nonword, like "um" and "uh." Plus, "using 'like' makes you sound inarticulate and young - in a bad way," says Diane DiResta, author of Knockout Presentations. So ditch it - you'll sound less tentative (read: way cooler) without it.
"Sorry!" "Oops, sorry." "Sorry, my bad!"
Women always seem to be on hyperalert for reasons to apologize: We beg someone's pardon when we're not sure we heard them correctly or when we lose our train of thought. We ask forgiveness for our messy house when someone drops by unannounced (as if we should have had it spotless, waiting for them). Heck, if we "inconvenience" another woman by reaching for a shirt on a store rack at the same moment that we think she's reaching for it, we say, "Sorry!"
Enough with politely assuming we're always in the wrong or that we haven't measured up to others' expectations, says Judith Selee McClure, a communications expert and author of Civilized Assertiveness for Women. She advises women who attend her assertiveness workshops to replace "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that" with "Could you please repeat that?" She also urges them to abandon "Sorry, the house is really such a mess" for the far less neurotic "Please come in!" Adds McClure: "Even 'I apologize' is better than 'Sorry.' 'I apologize' is at least active; 'sorry' is a passive little word."
McClure says that it takes most women in her workshops a while to become convinced that they say the word "sorry" much too much, but that sooner or later, they all do. It clicked for one woman the day she dropped a zucchini at the supermarket and heard herself exclaim, "Oh, I'm sorry!" - to the zucchini.
