An estimated 100% of adults will experience a dreaded episode of “foot-in-mouth syndrome” at some point in their lives. Symptoms include blurting out opinions before thinking them through, cracking one-liners that later make you cringe, and losing sleep over off-the-cuff comments.
We kid, of course, but the pain of saying something embarrassing or unintentionally offensive is no joke. While everyone has put their foot in their mouth at one time or another, some of us tend to do so more than others. That doesn’t mean we’re bad people — it’s more an indication that we’re anxious people, per psychotherapist Joel Blackstock.
“We often speak not to communicate information but to discharge our own nervous energy,” Blackstock, clinical director at Taproot Therapy Collective, told Nice News. “We feel a silence and it feels dangerous, so we fill it with a joke that does not land or a comment that is too honest.”
The good news is there are strategies for speaking more intentionally — and for repairing the situation when you inevitably do say the wrong thing. But remember: Slipping up socially isn’t the end of the world. The most important takeaway is to give yourself grace and focus on the fact that you didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Chances are high that no one will remember what you said anyway.
Strategies for Speaking With Intention
The WAIT Principle
The best method for preventing a gaffe is to pause for a few seconds before speaking and use that space to employ the WAIT principle — which stands for “Why Am I Talking?” In other words, consider whether what you’re saying is adding value to the conversation or you’re just in impulse mode.
“A lot of times, we get so wound up in needing to identify something, needing to solve something, needing to respond to something. And we haven’t given our brains and our nervous system an opportunity to even process the information,” said Yovanna Madhere, a licensed social worker and personal development coach.
“Especially in our modern society where everything is a swipe and a click and a ‘give it to me now,’ we have dysregulated our nervous system and are on this constant hamster wheel of fight or flight or freeze or fawn,” she added. “So the WAIT principle asks us, implores us, to say: ‘Why am I even talking?’”
The Echo Technique
Another way to minimize the risk that a comment will later keep you up at night is to replay it in your head before the words come out rather than after, per Cyndee Harrison, a former etiquette teacher who now works in crisis communications. It’s simple: Prior to actually vocalizing your input, say the entire thing in your mind and let it echo for a moment or two.
“If you imagine your words echoing back to you before you say them, you need to ask yourself, ‘Is this helpful or am I just uncomfortable with the quiet?’” Harrison explained. “Real poise is being comfortable in the silence, because when we’re just trying to fill that space with noise, that’s when blunders happen. A blunder is kind of like an escape hatch for social anxiety.”
She continued: “What we know is when those issues come up, what do we do? We echo it in our own minds. So go ahead and just proactively set yourself in the habit of doing that ahead of time.”
Ask More Questions
Pointing out the old saying, “We have two ears to hear and one mouth to speak,” Madhere suggests that we should always aim to listen twice as much as we talk. To do this while still moving the conversation along, ask more questions.
She explained: “When we ask questions with our one mouth, what we do is we give someone an opportunity to talk about themselves. We have now outsourced the conversation. The foot can come out of the mouth.”
That said, she recommends employing the same three-second pause before a question that you would before a statement, making sure you read the room, and avoiding sensitive topics.
Embrace This Sentence …
When we disagree with someone, feel strongly about a topic, or take offense at someone else’s comments, we often end up reacting emotionally. Per Harrison, the best approach for diffusing these situations is to add this sentence to your vocabulary: “I see it differently.”
This catch-all comment, said with a smile, allows discourse to remain civil regardless of how opinions differ.
Switch Up Your Inner Monologue
To improve the way you speak, try being kinder with the person you talk to most — yourself. If we frequently respond to parts of ourselves in a reactive or judgmental way, we may be more prone to doing the same in conversation with others.
“These ‘problematic’ parts often contain aspects of your experience that you have distanced yourself from — what [Carl] Jung called ‘the shadow,’” said Blackstock. “When we treat our internal ‘bad guys’ with respect, we get the data they are carrying without acting out the drama they are craving. That internal respect naturally flows outward because you are no longer projecting your own shadow onto everyone else.”
What to Do When a Blunder Happens
Even with the best intentions and strategies in your pocket, it’s nearly impossible to never say something that you end up regretting. When it inevitably happens, here’s how to handle it.
If you realize immediately that you’ve said something you wish you hadn’t, just say, “Strike that — I didn’t phrase that the way I meant to,” Harrison suggests. Then move on in the conversation.
The same goes for realizing a faux pas later on. A simple “I’ve been thinking about our conversation and would like to apologize for a comment that came out wrong” is all you need.
Most importantly, don’t over apologize. “What that does is it forces the other person to comfort you,” explained Harrison, adding: “Now, because you’re so brokenhearted about it, you’ve doubled the weight of it.” Blackstock agreed, pointing out that by doing so, “you are actually making the situation about your own shame rather than the other person’s feelings.”
He added: “You have to be willing to sit in the discomfort of having made a mistake without trying to fix it immediately with more words. The ruminating at night happens because we are trying to solve the feeling of shame. You cannot solve a feeling — you just have to feel it and let it pass.”
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