On many occasions, I have been been told that I am the softest spoken person or I have gotten the classic, "Speak Up! Nobody can hear you!" Over the years this has gotten quite old and whenever I hear anything pertaining to my volume my heart sinks a bit in my chest. Yes, I am aware that I am quiet. For some reason people always feel the need to let me know that I am quiet.
Yes, I do know how quietly I am speaking, I can also hear my voice and I don't need you to inform me. You don't need to inform me and you definitely don't need to make obnoxious comments about it. "What!? I can't hear you!" are evil and familiar words to a soft spoken person. We have all heard them before and we will hear them again. I am trying to speak up, I thought I was and just because you are louder than me doesn't mean you should be rude about it.
As a result of being soft-spoken, authoritative positions are much harder. When your voice is always super soft and sweet sounding it can be hard to be taken seriously. Just because I am talking quietly and in a nice tone of voice doesn't mean that I am not serious. I am serious and I deserve the same amount of respect as those with more "authoritative" voices.
Going along with the theme of struggling in places of authority, public speaking is very hard. This one is obvious and goes along with a few of the others but is still quite the struggle. As if public speaking wasn't terrifying enough, let's add in the lovely factor of soft speaking. You could be speaking your loudest and doing your very best, only to find out later that your voice traveled as far as 2-3 rows in front of you.
Being soft spoken doesn't only impact your professional career, it does quite a deal on personal relationships as well. As a soft-spoken person myself, there have been many times that I have just given up on being part of a conversation. We aren't always as silent as you think we are, you just don't always hear us. After a few failed tries to give our input and to be involved in the conversation we'll just give up. It gets frustrating and embarrassing to say something multiple times and still have barely anyone–if anyone–hear us.
Many times when quiet people such as myself don't speak in a certain group or situation people just automatically assume that we aren't listening. This isn't exactly a struggle, but it is something that I find amusing and wanted to add. People always seem to assume that just because I am quiet and am not looking at them, that I am not listening. Being a quiet person has made me such an amazing listener.
Soft Spoken and quiet people learn so many random things about other people because they just seem to think that we can't hear them. So, news flash to the people around us: even if we are being quiet and not listening, there is a very good chance that we are listening and can hear every word.
