How To Lean Into Your Communication Strengths as an Introvert
Introverts are fundamentally different from extroverts in that our knowledge and ideas are not as immediately visible to others due to our quiet, reserved nature. When an extrovert walks into a gathering, you’ll know it because you often hear them before you see than, but when an introverts walks into a gathering, they might slip right by you going unnoticed. Because of this, there are some specific communication strengths introverts can harness to ensure their presence is known and felt in their personal and work lives, even if it’s not as flashy as our extroverted counterparts.
In today’s podcast episode, we’ll explore the 4 different ways you can lean into your communication strengths as an introvert, and towards the end, I’ve got a great tip on how you can work around your communication weaknesses.
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Transcript
Welcome to The Introverted Misfit Podcast with me, Caroline Smith, where we discuss topics related to the human experience of connection and communication with a slightly awkward, introverted twist.
In today’s podcast episode, we’ll explore the 4 different ways you can lean into your communication strengths as an introvert, and towards the end, I’ve got a great tip on how you can work around your communication weaknesses.
I’ve always been naturally quiet and introverted — even since I was a child.
My case is a little more interesting and complicated because of autism, socially awkwardness, and social anxiety, which is NOT a great combo.
But once I overcame that period in my life, I realized that being an introvert does not mean shy or socially inept, which I go into great detail about in my earlier podcast episode, Are you Shy, Introverted, or Both? Discover the Key Differences.
Introversion is a separate thing from that entirely.
And throughout my life, I’ve discovered that my strengths as an introvert can actually be very beneficial if you know how to harness them and use them the right way.
The definition of an introvert is a quiet person who tends to enjoy time spent alone.
The definition of an extrovert is an outgoing person who enjoys socializing with people.
But in typical introvert style, I had to come up with an overly-deep analogy to capture the premise of this episode.
Imagine you’re looking at the ocean during a bad storm.
It’s immediately noticeable by everyone because of the loud crashing waves, and it’s almost impossible to ignore.
But you’re looking at the ocean on a calm, peaceful day, it’s sort of like background noise.
You probably won’t even notice it outright, and it looks like there’s not a lot going on, but the very calm surface does not reflect all of the life that’s breathing below the surface.
And that analogy isn’t to say that introverts and extroverts always have to stay in their lanes 100% of the time, because introversion and extraversion exists on a spectrum, and at some point we all have to get out of our comfort zone.
But based on our unique traits, how can we, as introverts, harness our qualities to be advantageous in our lives?
Especially when our ideas and knowledge are not immediately as noticeable as our extroverted counterparts?
In the remainder of this episode, I’m going to explain how we can utilize the 4 most common strengths of introverts, including the power of introspection, the power of deep thought, the power of listening, and the power of 1-on-1 connection.
The power of introspection.
Introspection is the examination of one’s own thoughts and feelings, or in other words the act og being reflective.
Being introspective gives us the ability to deeply understand our own emotions and our own thoughts regarding a multitude of topics and situations, and because of that, I find we can be especially compassionate and empathetic to what other’s are going through and even how their view of the world was shaped.
For instance, as someone whose brain is not normal, or neurodivergent because of my experience with having autism, and because of the utter stress and social anxiety that caused in my life for a very long time, I’ve had many, many years to sit and think about my own feelings surrounding things like mental health, mental illness, bullying, exclusion, social rejection, and overall just being different from the norm.
Because of that, I find that I can be pretty empathetic to people who are not mentally well and people who have been socially outcasted to some degree.
There is a lot of power in being able to communicate your empathy towards someone else’s experiences.
By the way, that doesn’t mean you should compare everything they’re going through to your own experiences because too much of that comes off as self-centered, but it does mean that because you understand them on a personal level, you can connect with them on a much deeper level.
In my own life, even though my innate social and communication deficits made it difficult for me to get my message of empathy and compassion just right, the feelings I had were always there.
So when I did eventually improve on my communication skills, I really got to see the power of introspection.
The power of deep thought.
Deep thought is the ability to think about things below the surface level.
Being a deep thinker allows you to explore every aspect of a problem to get to the root causes, rather than just looking at the symptoms.
I’m going to give you an example of this using a theme that’s been showing up quite a bit in my personal life.
I’m 26, which makes me part of Generation Z (Gen Z).
I commonly hear many complaints from Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Generation X about Gen Z’s and Gen Alpha’s lack of motivation, lack of respect and manners, our incredibly short attention spans, declining mental health, and the general sense of apathy.
And I know it’s common for each aging generation to complain about the problems with the younger generations, but when the other person is coming from a dismissive, judgmental state, it can be a little hurtful and sometimes annoying.
To be frank, I hear the complaints mostly from the educators in my family and educators in general which makes complete sense seeing as they have the most interactions with young people, and they always ask the same question:
“What’s wrong with the kids of today?”
I think some of theme are pretty good about exploring the issues a little deeper, but I’ve found that a lot of them are happy to stop at the question without delving deeper into the answer.
Either they don’t want to explore, or the conversation comes up when it’s not the right time or place for a deep discussion like that.
They just talk about the symptoms of the real problem, and that is inherently very surface level.
But with the power of deep thought, you can explore say the commonalities of our childhoods and upbringing that were different than the previous generations, or the major technological advances — i.e., the smartphone and social media — that greatly affected our daily lives.
Below the surface of issues is where the real answers are, and that’s what deep thought can accomplish.
The power of listening.
The source of a lot of people’s mental and emotional problems come from feeling unheard and invalidated, from the time we’re children, that those problems are exactly where the power of listening comes into play.
Not the kind of listening where it goes in one ear and out the other, but the kind where you are really grasping every word.
Sometimes people don’t even need a response or advice from you; they just want someone to listen and show they genuinely care about what they’re going through.
And in those cases where they do want your advice, you have the ability to provide a thoughtful, meaningful answer.
You know the importance of listening if you’ve ever been in a situation where someone who is really upset feels like they’re not being listened to, and it’s cery disheartening to witness, because you can just see them shut down in front of you and become very withdrawn.
Listening is what makes people feel valued and seen, and that’s where real change often starts — when people feel heard and understood.
Finally, the power of 1-on-1 connection.
1-on-1 connection allows for more meaningful conversations to happen.
It’s not that group conversations can’t be meaningful, but typically the more people are involved, the more the conversation can veer off onto different topics every few minutes.
Especially if there are other more outspoken, extroverted people involved, you’ll barely be able to get a word in before the topic changes.
However, those kinds of things are a lot less likely to happen in 1-on-1 interactions, and in my experience, that is an optimal situation for real change to occur.
All of your energy is going into listening to and understanding the other person and vice versa.
I don’t know if you have ever watched the TV show Supernanny, back when it was still aired on TV (it might even be available on a streaming service nowadays), but I used to watch that show with my mom and my sisters all the time.
The premise of the show was for Jo Frost, A.K.A “Supernanny,” to go into these extremely dysfunctional family dynamics and try to implement healthy communication and relational skills between family members.
There are some situations where Jo will address the entire family as a group, but the real transformative conversations happened when Jo would pull specific family members to the side, away from everyone else, so that she could engage with them 1-on-1 without the interruptions and distractions from other family members.
Not only did this provide a safe space for the individual to open up without distractions, but it also allowed the individuals to feel seen and heard in many cases for the first time, because no one else in the family would listen to their problems.
It was amazing to see how the individuals would be brought to tears in these interactions, and you could really see how much pent up emotions were being pushed down and ignored for years, and all of this was only allowed to occur when they could talk with Jo, 1-on-1.
So those are just a few of the common communication strengths of introverts, and by the way theses strengths don’t only work in your personal life, but also in your work life.
It allows you to create professional relationships with coworkers and higher ups, and those strengths can even allow your ideas to be heard by the right people in a way that you can best communicate them.
I’ll give you one last quick example from my own life:
About 1 year deep into my career as a software engineer, I had already been working on my coaching business outside of work, and that included my blog.
It had eventually began to gain some traction and get more and more visitors — much quicker than my employer’s company blog had been progressing in the 5 years they had been blogging.
However, I didn’t feel confident enough to speak up about it in the meetings.
So, I walked into my boss’s office and told him my idea outside of our usual team meetings.
6 months later, he decided to give me a shot at contributing to the blog, and to their surprise, the blog started to pick up traction in a little over 8 months!
And guess what? That among my other contributions eventually led to me getting a raise about a year after that.
The communication techniques I used there were deeply thinking about how I could tell my boss my idea in the most receptive way, and then talking with him 1-on-1.
Now, I mentioned that towards the end of this video would be a helpful tip about how to work around your communication weaknesses, so here’s the tip:
Don’t get stuck in the label of introverted.
What I mean when I say that is don’t use your naturally introverted personality as an excuse to stay quiet all of the time.
There are some situations that will require you to speak up and make your ideas and opinions heard, just like for extroverts there are some situations that will require them to stop talking so much and let other people have a turn.
This means you’ll need to learn how to socialize in group settings, learn how to speak up when the time is right, learn how to read the room and sense whether this is the time and place for a deep discussion, learn how to engage in small talk, and overall become a more balanced version of yourself — even while being an introvert.
So that’s my tip on how to not get so stuck in the “introverted” label that you can’t cope in those situations that require you to get out of your comfort zone.
It’s not about changing your personality, because you’ll be an introvert for the majority of your free time naturally — it’s about learning how to adapt when the situation calls for it.
That’s all for today’s episode. If you are an introvert who struggles with social anxiety and social awkwardness, check the description to learn more about my 1-on-1 coaching program, Communicate with Quiet Confidence, or you can go directly to theintrovertedmisfit.com/coaching to book your free introductory call today.
As always, if you enjoyed this talk, please don’t forget to hit the follow or subscribe button, leave a review and/or comment whether you’re tuning in on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and share this podcast with a friend. Thanks for listening, and have a great day!
Connect With Caroline:
Website: https://theintrovertedmisfit.com
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-smith-5119b0311/
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