Are You Over-Explaining? How to Break Free and Communicate Confidently!

The key to becoming an effective communicator is to keep the conversation clear and assertive without any over-explanation.

To make any conversation more effective, one most common way is never to over explain yourself as it hinders communication and makes it less effective. Over-explanation has many triggers such as trauma, insecurity, lack of confidence or fear of rejection. 

By following certain techniques, you can definitely overcome this speech pattern shared by Navneet Kaur, Transformation and communication coach. 

Strategies for stopping over-explaining:

1. Meditative learning - One of the main reasons found behind over-explaining is anxiety. Practicing deep breathing exercises and meditation helps to relieve stress and makes an individual more confident to just speak out the emotions straightforwardly.

2. Reflecting before speaking - Whenever you wish to state something to someone, take a moment to pause and think before speaking to achieve better clarity on what to state and in what manner that doesn’t seem elaborated. 

3. Focus on feedback - May the over-explaining be on the personal front or professional one, your close friends and colleagues can definitely guide you better on your style of communication and what is the scope of change required. Always welcome feedback and try to change accordingly. 

4. Confidence is the key - Mostly, the behavior of over-explaining has been seen amongst those who are less confident about themselves and feel their words will be misunderstood. So try to be confident within yourself. Master your mind before mastering anyone else. 

5. Be a good listener - Most times when we speak, our aim is to speak what we want to say rather than talking about what others want to hear. This gives a setback to the communication happening. So an effective communicator needs to be a good listener who chooses listening to others more important than speaking. 

6. Try role play - If you feel that you are an over-explainer and something important has to be discussed, make use of a mirror at home or choose a friend and practice what you want to state to feel more confident and clear.

7. Awareness - To be an impressive communicator, you need to be more aware of yourself while talking that you have crossed the limit and are now overstretching it. 

8. Use of visual aids - This works better on a professional front. Make use of some aids such as charts, graphs, posters, etc. for effective communication and giving an impactful message.

9. Avoid monologues - Speaking alone in a conversation or answering in a lengthy way is called monologue which makes the talk boring and less attentive. Whenever talking, try to ask questions in between so that both parties remain active and attentive.