Do you practice mental editing? What is that you ask? The most common problem we humans get ourselves into is speaking before we think. Our words have separated best friends, divorced once-close couples and have even brought countries to war against each other.
I like to practice what I term “mental editing.” If I have the chance, I try to speak to myself in my head and see how it sounds before I verbalize it to others. Sometimes I simply rearrange words in my head so the thought will be clearer. There are many times I completely erase those sentences before they have the chance to come out of my mouth. After going over it in my head I realized what I was about to say was irrelevant or was going to be something that I would later
regret.
Nowadays, we often write our letters on an electronic device. We have the opportunity to go back and edit what we have written. We change things because when we reread it, it is obvious that perhaps it might be taken the wrong way or may be slightly hurtful or even come across as being arrogant.
If you have the chance, formulate your thoughts in your mental word processor and edit them before you begin to speak -- especially on delicate topics.
