Checklist: 8 signs that you are too talkative
alexander savina
Habit talk a lot It seems harmless, say, the habit of constantly lying or inability to keep track of your finances. And yet the tendency to chat without ceasing, not listening to others and not giving them the opportunity to insert at least a word, can greatly affect relations with friends, family and colleagues: we all need attention. We offer to check whether you should better monitor how the conversation is built.
1
Colleagues and relatives constantly make you comments
Everyone had situations where they couldn’t wait to tell a cool (albeit very long) story - and there’s nothing to worry about. Another thing, if the situation is systematically repeated, and others began to hint at it directly. If colleagues regularly make comments to you - ask to speak more quietly, go into a conversation and discuss their questions there, or they say directly that you are stopping others from working, it means it's time to think about how much of your working time is spent not on work, but on conversations. The same with friends, relatives and friends: if they complain that you talk a lot about yourself, but are not at all interested in their affairs - this is a reason to at least analyze your behavior.
2
You express your opinion, even if you are not asked
Another sign that unequivocally indicates that you should listen more and talk less - if you notice that you are ready and try to participate in any conversation, even if you have nothing to do with it. Express your opinion, talk about your experience in a similar situation, give comments normally, but the interlocutor should want this and be interested in this.
Just as with constructive criticism, a simple rule works in any conversation: what you say should be appropriate. If the interlocutor tells you important news from his life, and you get stuck in a conversation to recall a similar incident that happened to you five years ago, or if you get involved in a dialogue of colleagues, although they obviously were not going to discuss the issue with you - it's time to slow down.
3
You tell the same stories over and over again.
Few things can be as embarrassing as telling the same story twice - except to tell it the third time to a person who has already heard it. We all have in store a favorite case from life, which is good to remember at a party or in the company of friends. But if people start complaining that you have already heard about him a hundred times, you may say so much that you don’t have time to notice that you’ve run out of stories. It is unlikely that all your stories are so good that it is worth remembering them from time to time - it is much more interesting to discuss something new.
4
Interlocutors do not listen to you
There are several signs by which you can understand that your interlocutor is tired of the conversation: for example, if he responds in monosyllables, constantly distracted and asks what you just said, looks at the clock, looks bored or irritated, doesn't look you in the eyes, stands , with arms folded, or constantly checking the phone - it is quite possible that he is not interested in you.
Of course, everything is not so simple: maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with you - it’s just that something bothers your interlocutor and he isn’t able to concentrate on the conversation. True, in this case it is also worth considering whether it makes sense to continue to chat - at least ask if everything is alright.
5
Your conversations turn from dialogue to monologue
According to the research data, we spend on average almost 40% of each conversation on stories about ourselves. Perhaps this is due to the fact that when we share personal information, it activates the brain reward system - and if we are talking about others, this does not happen. But, no matter how pleasant it is to talk about yourself, the ideal conversation should be structured differently, and the time should be evenly distributed between the interlocutors.
Mark Golson, a specialist in business psychology, believes that every negotiation consists of three stages. The first is the business stage: you speak clearly and to the point. The second is the stage of relaxation: you feel freer and you may not notice that the other person is losing interest. The third is an attempt to rectify the situation: often, when we see that the interlocutor is distracted, we start talking even more to regain his interest, although this method rarely works.
All this, of course, does not mean that you need to have conversations with a stopwatch - but if you feel that instead of a dialogue, you get a monologue every time, it's time to be more attentive to your interlocutors.
6
You find yourself saying that you have talked too much
A sure sign that you cannot stop talking in time: you find yourself saying that you have said something that you regret now — be it a secret (your own or someone else’s), an offensive comment or any other phrase, which was not worth pronouncing at this time in this place. If you understand that in order to maintain an interesting conversation, they are ready to throw out any information to the interlocutor without thinking about the consequences, we have bad news for you.
7
Food cools faster than you talk with friends.
Not the most serious item on the list, and yet. For a good conversation, time flies by - everyone knows who has seen the dawn at least once, because he has started talking. If you can’t talk enough, because you haven’t seen each other for a long time, or have been discussing something important and interesting, it happens. But if your food cools over and over again faster than you finish telling a story, or you cannot touch a cup of coffee in two hours of conversation - you may need to pause more often and let others speak.
8
You start most conversations yourself
Of course, there are different situations: for example, you can start a conversation with friends first, but first ask how they are doing, and only then talk about yourself. Another thing is if you talk to people who are busy now and are not set up to talk, or you notice that people around you avoid talking to you. For example, many employees of openspaces use headphones to focus on work: but if you see others wearing them when you just go in their direction, perhaps it’s you who are preventing you from concentrating.
If you know that there is such a thing as “awkward silence”, but you didn’t come across it yourself, because you instantly start a conversation with anyone and do not tolerate pauses - perhaps this item is also about you.
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