Being straight, direct, or to the point is very much a lost art. This is so because most people tend to stand on one of two opposite ends of the spectrum of what being direct means. Either a handful of people are on the side that rewords and morphs things in an attempt to make things seem more appealing, or the other handful is too got up in their emotions to where they are expressing feelings rather than factual statements. So where does that leave us?
Well, to be frank, in a space where conversations and engagements are drawn out, and there are constant miscommunications, directness is more needed than before. Looking back at my own experience, and comparing it to others, when I’ve been most successful was when I was as direct as possible. This includes my corporate experiences and my experiences with FAI.
Now that leads to the main point of the article. What does being genuinely direct honestly look like?
Staying Out of Your Feelings
The first step to becoming more direct is straight to the point. That is, suppressing your feelings and communicate only in facts. Letting your emotions swarm your train of thought, and understanding of things creates a cloudy and hazy mess in your head. Having a headspace like that easily makes it almost impossible to get ideas out in a way that makes sense.
Properly constructing thoughts, and taking in information, requires a still mind to be able to process things. Allowing our emotions to influence our processing distorts reality, and creates things in our head that empower us to overreact and have outbursts. So in short, stay out of your feelings.
Focus On Points That Resonate
Nobody likes anything long-winded, or overly wordy for no reason. Sticking to concise points that create some form of mental imprint makes things stick. Mental imprints are important because information needs to connect to something in the brain through memory or what it interprets visually. This connection is what makes information easier to understand, and then store long term through the associated relationship in the mental imprint.
The best way to put it; keep it short, sweet, to the point, and memorable.
Understand Your Audience
The majority of life we have on this Earth, we’ll be spending it communicating. This comes in many forms: music, literature, conversations, body language, etc. For conversations, most people take this as a means to be overprotective with you they speaking to by carefully choosing their words to ensure not being offensive.
To a degree, nobody should ever lean into a conversation in an attempt to offend. However, it should never get to the point where that becomes the conversation’s goal. The right way to do this is to instead of overthinking about offending, instead, focus on what word selection or conversation style is best suited to get the proper message across.
In a boxing ring between rounds, would you rather have the coach talking to you softly or one that’s aggressive? The aggressive one is transferring their energy and anger into you to fuel your performance, while the soft one will make you docile and probably get you knocked out.
In Closing
Being direct is a key aspect of having great conversations, and leading a room. In addition, it also improves how you’re perceived by others and your ability to network. So hopefully this article helps sheds some light on ways to start the improvement plan to become more direct.