When I look at support and advice out there for people in speaking up, it often focuses on others sponsoring, mentoring and creating opportunities for us, and whilst that’s important, I believe a lot needs to be done personally before that point; we have to do the work on ourselves.

We are all on a continuous learning journey throughout our lives. The human skills we have can be refreshed at any point, whilst finding voice early in our careers is particularly helpful. We all know there are different phases and chapters in our careers to re-find ourselves and rebuild our influence, especially if being brave and “beginning again” as Davina McCall might say. If you’ve noticed your influence fading recently, a revisit of simple bond-building discourse may be beneficial to unlock any bad habits, or perhaps, like me, you have young adults in your household or may be onboarding new generations at work that need the encouragement to stand out and find their voice in the crowd.

Sometimes, we may have had the chance early on in childhood to be part of school drama productions, music recitals, or choirs, and this shapes our beliefs based on those early experiences of being in front of an audienc

Many people, however, choose not to step out front or raise their hand for a main character, and those early testing points pass by all too swiftly, subtly seeing themselves as just part of the ensemble.

Finding our voice out loud to begin our journey of awareness, understanding and influence is commonly misunderstood.

Our voice in our heads is one of complete freedom, free from judgment and fear. We have a continual inner dialogue with ourselves, unscripted and unedited. Yet there are different parts of our brain operating when we speak our thoughts out loud, and that matters. Talking out loud encourages the formation and processing of our tho

Hence, talking therapies are more effective at treating the cause of stress, anxiety, depression and a host of other mental illnesses than the medicated route often used to treat symptoms. And as anyone who has experienced talking therapies, you will know what I mean when I say we do the hard work on ourselves through that process over time.

But back to my point about voice, when we talk about a problem out loud, we are much more likely to find an answer, correct ourselves by the end of our sentence, than just working it through in our heads.

It has a huge impact on our working lives to recognise this early on and get into the mode of courageously being one of the main characters in the room and finding our own voice.

In my early career, I felt I had to “do my time” to deserve a voice in big meetings, where we discussed very important things using lots of acronyms and corporate jargon.

Imagine now how this new generation might feel entering the hybrid workplace coming from an online social network space where if you make a mistake online in your “friend” group you are exposed, vulnerable and often humiliated with replays of videos, reposts of your words.

Adding to this, multiple lockdowns meant we missed out on all the nonverbal cues critical to social development in a group setting to know how to behave, how to enter a room, how to shake someone’s hand and how to introduce ourselves.

In organisations, yes, we need to create psychological safety for everyone to be themselves, but we all know that isn’t always possible, and work is full of discomfort and awkward situations. This means this is much more about personal bravery and courage to find our own voice and use it.

What is the early work that we need to do to confidently use our voice in meetings? Firstly, we have to get ourselves in the room, be there regardless of who else is, observe, and watch people’s nonverbal communication: eye contact, hand gestures, tone of voice, pace of voice, pitch of voice, nodding, leaning forward or sitting back. What is each person’s presence saying about them, and what are they saying?

Practice using different non-verbal cues yourself and see how others react.

Secondly, you need to hear your own voice outside of your head, which is incredibly hard to do at first when your confidence is low or you’re simply in a completely new environment. A good route is to mimic others, using active listening, replaying what someone said to them, repeating it and then translating it, saying what you heard them say, and gradually expanding it. People love this, by the way; it confirms their point and creates subtle bonds in a relationship.

If you keep doing this, you will eventually – accidentally – say what you think out loud.

Then, when you do so, this is when the others around you, sponsors, champions and mentors will have the greatest impact by positively reinforcing your points, and recognising your contribution as valuable regardless of your years of experience. That’s the truly confidence-building part where you can easily move on from people pleasing to owning your words, to owning your own opinions and then to owning your own influence as a main character in the room.