To Say What You Mean or Not to Say What You Mean

Feb 11, 2025

The ability to say what you mean has a lot to do with having a healthy relationship with work. Not least of which, your resistance to burnout.

Burnout has three characteristics, all of which can be impacted by whether you are able to say what you mean.

  • Exhaustion: holding back on saying what we mean uses energy.

  • Cynicism: when we don’t get our truth out it is easy for us to get stuck in stories that may not be accurate and that’s a great recipe for cynicism.

  • Inefficacy: Not saying what we mean is often about not bringing our true thoughts, emotions and information to bear, which can impact our sense of effectiveness.

Let’s look at four variations of saying what you mean:

  • saying what you think

  • responding to what you notice

  • expressing how you truly feel

  • sharing information (facts or feelings)

How to say what you mean in any of these variations starts with whether to do it.

Don’t want to just blurt something out without thinking? Solid choice.

Don’t want to keep something bottled up and keep kicking yourself for it? Also wise.

Something to Try

When you want to make informed decisions about whether to say what you think, respond to what you notice, express how you truly feel, or share information (facts or feelings), consider your reasons. 

Step #1 

Consider good reasons NOT TO say what you mean.

See if any of these descriptions apply to your situation. It might not be a good idea to say what you mean when:

  • Doing so would threaten safety (yours or someone else’s)

    • It’s always wise to follow your instincts about what is safe and what’s not and take that into consideration when it comes to saying what you mean.

 

  • Your motives don’t serve you, others, or the situation

    • Like when you are tempted to say something vengeful or make someone look bad but it’s really not going to help.

 

  • The relationship doesn’t warrant it

    • Like getting caught up in the opinions of strangers. In some cases, you don’t even know them and don’t need to.

 

  • The cause is not important to you

    • Someone might try to bring you into a dispute about food left in the break room refrigerator but if you don’t use it, why get pulled in.

 

  • There’s no potential for improvement

    • This one is tricky. We can sometimes tell ourselves there is no room for improvement as a way to avoid something that we are uncomfortable with.

Step #2

Consider good reasons TO say what you mean.

  • When you think about saying what you think, responding to what you notice, expressing how you truly feel, or sharing information (facts or feelings) what comes to mind as good reasons TO do it?
  • What can be gained for you, others, your causes, or your relationships?

 

Try to be as honest and objective as you can here. It's easy to convince ourselves not to say what we mean when we assume someone will be uncomfortable, it won't make a difference, or "I shouldn't care so much."

 

The truth is, just like there are very valid reasons not to say what we mean, there are very valid reasons to:

  • Not least of which, it can help us to avoid burning out

  • Call out injustices

  • Keeps us from being obligated to things we don’t want to

  • Preserves relationships that might be harmed otherwise.

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