Drop These Phrases From Your Vocabulary If You Want to Sound More Confident

Keep your ear out for these apprehensive phrases and practice eliminating or re-wording them to sound more assertive.

It minimizes our power, and sounds as if were asking for permission to speaksomething confident speakers rarely do.

Sorry (to bother you…)

Listen.

But sorry has become common usage in situations that require no apology.

Jovanovic notes that, Apologies have become our habitual way of communicating.

(Try it next time youre late or dont respond promptly to someone.

Instead of saying Sorry, say Thank you for waiting.)

(Of course we were, or we wouldnt be asking.)

This is another way to soften a request, or tepidly ask for agreement, rather than owning it.

I was wondering if we should call Bob?

I was wondering if we could do pizza instead of sushi?

Replace the wondering with, How about we…?

or What do you think of X?

Heres a fun experiment.

(Bonus points if they also track kinda and sorta.)

Chances are, its more than you think.

Were often immune to our overuse of these common filler words, but we need to be more aware.

They make us sound hesitant, nervous, even less intelligent.

What could you say instead?

Do you gotta say anything at all?

Which, in the context of a casual meeting or an informal brainstorming session, isnt awful.

Sure, we may sound non-threatening, but we also sound easily dismissed.

This and its sister phrase Do you know what Im saying?

are telltale signs weknowweve lost the plot.

For an immediate do-over, pause, say Let me re-phrase that and start again.

(Which, we all are to some degree.

But saying itout loudamong certain audiences is a habit worth curbing.)

If you need confirmation, try Is that accurate?

or Can anyone confirm?

This is when we say things like, This is probably a dumb question but…

If youre interested in being amore confident speaker or effective leader, this question must be dropped stat.

We should never belittle ourselves and our inquiries, at least not in front of others.

Instead, state what you think the answer could be, followed by, Do I have that right?