How to Disagree With Others Respectfully & Confidently

Instead of getting in a fight or not sharing your opinion at all because of not knowing how to do it respectfully or with confidence, take these 5 tips on how to disagree with others with respect & still owning your opinion & perspective.

Show Notes:
I was sharing with my therapist this week that I am was really proud of myself for being confident in my own perspective & opinion while participating in a group discussion online. I often am the person that will fall to someone else’s opinion because they come across as an authority figure or they say enough things to down play my opinion that I, too, render it useless. But this week I did not! I stood up for my thoughts & opinions in discussion, all while being respectful & open-minded.

And this was a big deal for me! It also lined up with what I was focusing on this week, which was ‘acting as if’ I were confident in most things I do. I struggle with confidence a lot because of my people-pleasing issues, but it’s something I want to work on & become a lot better at. So I set it as my goal to pretend (or as my therapist calls it, “acting as is.”) I was confident & live my life like that. It was a pretty good experiment that yielded positive results, so we are repeating for the next 2 weeks. But the point of this podcast isn’t to recount my entire therapy session, but to share with you what this taught me about disagreeing with others & doing so respectfully.

Whether we are confident or not, it can feel difficult to disagree with someone and do it respectfully because of how their point of view leads us to feel or the way they are coming across or even knowing they are incorrect in what they are saying. Whatever the reason, we can struggle with this, which can lead to bigger blowouts & uncomfortable situations.

But I can tell you from recent experience that being able to express how you think & feel, without it coming across as aggressive or rude (unless the receiver decides to see it that way, nothing we can do about that) is such an amazing feeling. And I think talking about this during this time of year of getting together for the holidays can be really helpful when having discussions or casual chats.

Here are 5 tips of How to Disagree Respectfully With Others:

1. Use ‘I’ statements when you share your opinion.
2. Don’t let your emotions control you. Choose to respond, not react.
3. Don’t put down or make fun of their opinion.
4. Practice active listening skills. Hear them out.
5. Know when to move on from the topic at hand.

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