Silence, Silence, Silence…
In the past I have written blogs about either being silent and listening, don’t be quick to speak, I even have a blog titled shhh, you get where I am going. I have written some blogs about being silent and have had countless conversations about silence. At this point in my life me and silence have become inseparable and I am not complaining at all. I have grown to love silence, who was once my worst enemy, and now my best friend. I guess I have to confess that my dad and the many people who have said you can learn everything you need to know sometimes by being silent are right. The moment I embraced silence and fought off the fear it was life changing.
It was life changing but not in this wonderful picturesque form or at least not at the beginning. The beginning of embracing silence sucked and I was in a bad mood. I was in a bad mood because I finally conquered my worst fear and my worst fear came true. I had to finally face EVERYTHING, the bad and the worse. Who would ever in their right mind choose a bad mood over a good mood? Also, who in their right mind allows for the wrong things to be done without expecting consequences? I knew at some point I would have to face the music and I did. The silence had to remove my worse fear in order for me to move forward in the right way. I knew I was on track now…Maybe
You know what you don’t know. The thing with silence is that it has many great benefits if you know how to work the system. There are times in or life that we just need silence to relax and unwind for the day. Silence is great when used during a lecture so we can better comprehend what the speaker is saying while we scribble something we call notes. Silence has many great benefits, but there was a piece I was missing. I realized that it was rare for me to be silent in my working. Now thinking about it silence would have saved me many hours at work. Sometimes I have a tendency to speak, think, and then speak again leading off with “I am sorry that didn’t sound right”. Yes, I was lacking the effective skill of working in silence.
Working in silence at least for me is a much needed piece that I was leaving out of the puzzle. It has allowed me to really understand conversations in my working as of recent that has benefited everyone. Many times the conversations I am in while working are not new conversations. In the past I would be still, silent while slowly drifting off to my own world, but now I want to be working in silence. These new old conversations has allowed me to think of different action steps to take that maybe lead to a more effective outcome, or that is our plan. I will admit the outcomes don’t always come out better, sometimes worse and we have to race to correct our mistake. I will say working in my silence has brought more creativity to the table.
Working in your silence is not just an effective tool to use only at work or while working, but it can be effective in life. How many times have we missed a turn because we weren’t paying attention. How many times have you said or heard someone say “That was a close call”, I know I have several times said and heard that phrase. We have so many close calls in our life that could have been avoided if we were working in our silence and picked up the phone to hear the right steps to take.
