How to Make Difficult Conversations Less Stressful

By Christopher Paul Jones, Harley Street phobia expert and author of Face your Fears

Your manager asks if you can “pop in for a chat” tomorrow, with absolutely no indication what the chat is about. Immediately, your mind gets to work. Have I done something wrong? Is somebody unhappy? Am I about to be criticized? You start going through recent emails and conversations looking for clues. By bedtime, you have mentally attended the meeting several times and, strangely enough, none of them has gone particularly well.

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The same thing can happen when you are the one who needs to start the conversation. A client has let you down, a builder has left a job unfinished, you need to tell somebody at work that you are unhappy, or perhaps there is something going on with your partner or family that you know you need to address. You keep thinking, “I really should say something”, then imagine how awkward it might become and decide that perhaps tomorrow would be better.

This is your brain trying to help. It is attempting to predict what might happen so you can be ready for it. Unfortunately, anxious preparation has a habit of going round in circles. Instead of producing a plan, you replay the same uncomfortable scene over and over again. By the time the conversation actually happens, you can feel as though you have already lived through it twenty times.

And this kind of anxiety is incredibly common. An ACAS report published in May 2021 estimated that close to 10 million UK employees experience conflict at work each year, with more than half reporting stress, anxiety or depression as a result.

Stop mind reading

We do something psychologists sometimes call “mind reading”. Essentially, we convince ourselves that we know what somebody else is thinking. Your manager sends an unusually short email, so you decide they are angry. A client looks serious, so you assume the meeting is going badly. Someone takes a while to reply, and your mind fills in the silence for them.

The trouble is that we can become anxious about a story your mind has created.

Ask yourself: what evidence do I actually have? What else could this mean? Am I responding to something that has happened, or something that I am predicting? A meeting may still be difficult, but you will go into it with a clearer idea of what is real.

If you are going to rehearse it, rehearse something useful

We are surprisingly good at mental rehearsal. The problem is that most of us rehearse the bit we do not want. So, decide first what you would actually like to happen. What do you need to say? What would you like the other person to understand? What would be a fair outcome? Where are you happy to compromise, and where do you need to hold a boundary?

Then turn the conversation into a movie in your mind. Picture yourself walking into the room feeling steady. See yourself listening rather than jumping in to defend yourself. Imagine somebody asking a difficult question and watch yourself pause, think and answer clearly.

The images and sounds we create internally affect how we feel. Change the movie and you can begin changing your response to it.

Give yourself time to respond

One of the first things anxiety does is speed us up. We answer too quickly. We start overexplaining. We fill every silence because the silence feels uncomfortable. Slow it down.

If somebody says something that catches you off guard, take a breath. Have a sip of water. Give yourself a few seconds. You are allowed to say, “I need a moment to think about that.” If somebody gives you vague criticism, ask them to be specific. It’s difficult to do anything with someone saying that you need to be more professional, but a comment that the report was two days late and nobody updated the client gives you something you can actually discuss.

The same applies when you are raising the issue. Rather than saying, “You’re completely unreliable”, explain what happened and what you would like done about it – this gives the conversation a much better chance of going somewhere useful.

When it is over, let it be over

A difficult meeting can finish at three in the afternoon while you are still having it in your head at eleven that evening.

Give yourself a few minutes to come back down. Walk around the block. Shake some tension out of your shoulders and arms. Take a few slower breaths or use a simple grounding exercise: notice five things you can see, four things you can feel and three things you can hear.

Then, once you feel settled, work out what needs to happen next. What was agreed? Is there anything you need to follow up? What did you handle well? Is there anything you would do differently another time?

So, remember before the next time you have a difficult conversation, notice the movie you are playing in your mind. Turn down the frightening pictures and voices rather than repeatedly rehearsing everything going wrong.

Get clear on what you want to happen and mentally rehearse yourself handling it well.

Check your body. Lift your head, open your posture and allow yourself to feel steady and confident.

Then broaden your awareness, breathe and take in what is actually happening around you.

You may find that the conversation in front of you is nowhere near as frightening as the one your mind has been having for days.

      Christopher Paul Jones is a leading Harley Street phobia expert and author of Face your Fears. Having overcome his own phobias, and conducted 20+ years of research across Europe, North America and Asia, Christopher has developed an integrated approach combining mainstream psychology with cutting edge techniques: The Integrated Change System™. The system aims to change the mind’s danger response and leave people free and happy to enjoy things they once found terrifying. A fear, anxiety or phobia can be cured in as little as a session. Christopher’s clients come from all over the world and include Hollywood actors and Oscar nominees, models, musicians, presenters and celebrities.

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