“Think before you speak,” I was told by my boss when I made a suggestion, on a client call, that was inevitably going to add an undue burden on me.
I had not thought through every possibility and had just blurted out the first thing that came to mind to please the client. There were other solutions to my problem, but I proposed the one that put all the work on me.
My boss was not pleased.
Since then, I have always wondered — how exactly do you think before you speak?
I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed but I can cut through enough wood to at least build a campfire.
I can organize my thoughts and put them on the page, but only with word processors which offer us the luxury to type something, go back, edit it, reorder it, and play with it enough times till my words precisely convey my thoughts.
But put a pen and paper in my hand and tell me to write the entire thing, in one go, with no mistakes, and I’m done. This incoherence carries over to speaking where if you let me talk and get my thoughts straight for a couple of minutes, eventually I can fully convey everything I want to say.
Saying or writing something right on the first go is a skill that only the sharpest of us possess — like a knife made out of polished diamonds.
In-person written exams are a huge measure of this skill. Multiple-choice tests or digitally submitted work, like essays, can’t match them.
They really force you to think about the exact sentence or line you are going to write before you put pen to paper. If you fail at this, you have to go back and leave unsightly strikethroughs that jump off the page and automatically leave a bad taste for the person grading your paper.
Now, this has problems as it may promote rote memorization, but those who can master this without going that route, develop an uncanny ability to always have the right thing to say in all situations.
It forces you to think fast, not just about your next sentence, but your entire argument. The way you introduce your thesis, the order in which you make your points, and the ability to choose the right word for the intended impact.
You develop a critical thinking skill — translating your thoughts into something that others can clearly understand.
Think about how valuable that is!
There is no more stuttering, no more backtracking, and no more second-guessing yourself.
The good news is — instead of having to be quick-witted, though that helps too, you can hone this skill over time.
I was always terrible at it. I always had poor marks in my written exams while I did good in my multiple-choice tests. Both are a test of knowledge but the second one offers something far more valuable.
I truly wish I paid more attention to developing this skill when I was younger. I feel like I missed out on some real growth during a receptive age.
Now, I carefully choose my words before I hammer away on the keyboard to practice this skill daily.
Well, you live and you learn.