4 phrases that make you sound less confident

4 phrases that make you sound less confident4 phrases that make you sound less confidentNot everyone is born a charming extrovert and thats a good thing. If everyone was the same, life would be boring. And especially in the workplace, its mainly when you have a variety of different personalities including the quieter and introverted personalities that workdays are mora colorful and interesting.However, introversion at work and having trouble outwardly communicating your thoughts and feelings in a healthy way can cause challenges in your career, because that typically means its hard to confidently perform in front of colleagues and supervisors and it also causes unnecessary awkwardnessWhether or not you would call yourself an introvert, here are a few specific phrases to stop saying and even rid from your vocabulary completely if you want to sound and feel more confident at work1. I just wanted People who express themselves vaguely and passively appear insecure. That leads us t o tip 1 If you want to appear more confident, say goodbye to passive wording. Instead of using phrases like I just wanted to , try Im planning on or My suggestion is to express your goals and ideas. You will notice, by using a binding language you will not only sound more determined, confident and competent in the moment to your colleagues and supervisors, but youll also start to believe it to be true.2. Could you maybe Many of us throw in the seemingly harmless word maybe without even noticing in our everyday work talk. For example, to ask a colleague for a favor or to assign a task. Of course its important to ask politely if you want someone to do something for you, but adding maybe to what otherwise should be a pretty straightforward request, makes it seem as if youre almost expecting to get a no answer. Or, it would at least give the receiver of your message the notion that you dont have high hopes that theyd say yes. We, therefore recommend using phrases like Can you help me with this project? without the word maybe. This doesnt necessarily take away the persons option to say no, but what it does is prevent any unnecessary confusion about your expectations.3. I could do that Friendliness and reliability are important requirements for teamwork and that means that you absolutely should lend a helping hand to colleagues every so often when you find its needed. However, that doesnt mean you have to be the one to help every time someone needs it, and neither does it mean that you should never say no to a coworker who asks for help.This probably feels difficult to do if youre a naturally generous and helpful person, but you must set and enforce your own boundaries and guard your own time in order to stay sane and successful at work yourself.If you know that youre swamped and cant spare time away from an important deadline or project, be upfront to both your colleagues and superiors. Offering help to others while secretly wishing you didnt have to, or eve n being quietly resentful about it, is NOT the way to go. You can respond to a request in a friendly but clear way I would love to help but unfortunately, I have no time.I could do that is also the wrong phrase if you really DO want to help out or do whatever task it is that needs to get done. In this case, communicating clearly about your intentions helps others understand that you are glad to take on the task and arent only doing it out of helpfulness.4. Filler words like actually or perhapsFiller words such as actually or perhaps have become more and more common in conversation these days. And while theres no problem with having those words in your vocabulary in general, you should be very careful about the way you throw them into sentences, especially in the workplace actually and perhaps have the potential to detract from what youre trying to say or even weaken your argument or conviction because they tend to not add much value. The same is true of the following expressions p ossibly, practically, possibly, possibly, and basically they all have the tendency to make you sound less confident.Thisarticlewas originally published onKununu.com.