Whenever I have to speak , I take too long to think and form my responses. It seems like my brain can’t process information fast enough. How do I improve my ability to think faster and explain what is on my mind while speaking?
For some reason your childhood didn’t result in you being secure and confidant, you feel you aren’t good enough, you fear criticism and rejection.
Look at yourself as your best friend does, what does he see? A caring helpful person who goes out of his way to make others feel better. Yes, you.Please understand that you are as good as anyone, your thoughts are as good as anyone else’s, your ideas are as right at anyone’s.You don’t have this opinion of yourself because you were brought up with criticism, you probably were not unconditionally loved, you may have thought you were only loved when you did what you were told, when you got good marks or cleaned your room.
That’s a shame, but not your fault, or realistic. You will now have to raise yourself. Tell you that you are good just the way you are, when you mess up you are still good. Your unconscious is protecting you and keeping you from harm is its job, doing that it makes you feel bad when you talk, it doesn’t want you to be hurt so it makes you feel anxious and tries to keep you away from anyone who might make you feel bad. It started during your childhood when avoiding people was the only way you could get by.Now you are grown and don’t need that kind of help, but you are left with a fully functioning but obsolete suit of avoidant armor.
Understand that the feelings you have are real, you really do fear that people will criticize or reject you. The feelings are very intense and real. BUT, the reason for the feelings are not real, your brain is sending you fake news.You are good enough, you are not only good enough but you are amazing to have survived as well as you did.
The shame and guilt that you feel is not your fault, it was done to you, it was the adults around you who were supposed to love you and cherish you and give you confidence who dropped the ball and screwed up. Not you, you were the victim.Please find a therapist to help you work through these feelings and discover coping techniques. Don’t spend your life feeling this way. Get help to get over it.Take good care of yourself.
You communicate carefully, and try to be clear. And impressively – you succeed.
But most people do not speak, write or even think like this. So it can sound slow, or unnatural, or labored, or even dumb to them.
It is easy enough to sound like a native speaker. All you have to do is speak fluently. But fluency is not the same as clarity.
Think of words as water.
When water runs quickly – it’s powerful and bubbly and energetic, but it tends to be frothy and very unclear. You only really see the glinting surface.
When water is slow or still, then the bubbles and the mud settle, and it becomes clear, and you can see how deep it is.
If you ever listen to a philosopher talk, they often sound almost like they are using words for the first time. They sound hesitant, and slow, and struggling. But that is because they are trying to be absolutely sure that what they say is absolutely true – or at least exactly what they mean to say.
Someone who can talk glibly and fluently about anything – a shock jock radio presenter, let’s say – may listen to them and think they sound dumb. The philosopher takes so long to say so little; whereas they can explain everything wrong with the world in a few snappy sentences.
But anyone who actually cares about what they say, and whether it’s worth saying, and whether it’s right – will always prefer people like you.
Because talking eloquently but saying nothing is just making air move.
It seems like you might be a good listener and have naturally trained yourself to listen much much more than speak, this in time can lead to a slower response from your vocal muscles, because you might have unconsciously built the habit ,so we need to break that habit and wire the brain to think and speak in sync.Read books out loud.
Think out loud when we think especially on our own we often don’t speak, people who don’t speak to many people every day often find it hard to speak on cue when they want to, so thinking out loud works.Singing really helps building the vocals better, deciding you are now a expressive person and commit to speaking even if it’s only to yourself you must speak or sing a minimum 3 hours a day you will rapidly increase your thoughts thinking and responses and voice and thinking will be in sync.Smiles when we are happy our brains naturally want to express itself your subconscious always knows what it has to do and it knows how to speak so just smiling and being excited will speed response, practice no filter speaking as you may be unconsciously filtering what you want to say because of approval seeking or fears of being judged.