Finding yourself fighting a battle in your mind during a meeting?
Should I say this? Am I supposed to know this already? What if it sounds stupid? Maybe everyone else understands this better than I do.
The meeting is still happening. You’re listening, at least partly. But some of your attention has moved somewhere else. Instead of being fully engaged in the conversation, you’re evaluating yourself within it.
This happens to people who have plenty to contribute. The problem isn’t that they don’t have a question, an opinion, or something useful to add. It’s that an internal conversation starts competing with the external one. And once that conversation gets going, it can become remarkably convincing.
Here’s something worth remembering: other people are probably thinking about you much less than you think they are.
When we’re very aware of ourselves, it’s easy to assume everyone else is equally aware of us. I’m worried about how my question will sound, so I imagine others are paying close attention to it. I can feel my uncertainty, so I assume they can see it too.
But how exposed we feel isn’t necessarily how exposed we are. Other people are usually much more occupied with the conversation, their own thoughts, and what they want to say than with analyzing us.
And that matters in a meeting. You don’t need to convince yourself that “I’m definitely good enough” or that your question is brilliant. Sometimes it’s enough to remember: what’s happening in your head isn’t necessarily what’s happening in the room.
There can also be a good reason why this particular internal conversation developed in the first place. Maybe you worked in an environment where being extremely careful about what you said was important. Maybe you learned early to read the room before speaking. Maybe mistakes, disagreement, asking the wrong question, or exposing what you didn’t know carried more weight than they do today.
A strategy like that can be useful. The difficulty is that a strategy that worked in one environment can continue operating long after the environment has changed.
That’s why “I’m just someone who doesn’t speak much in meetings” can sometimes be better understood as “In certain environments, I learned to be very careful before I speak.”
The difference may look small, but it changes what becomes possible. The first statement describes an identity. The second describes something learned. And something we learned to do in one context doesn’t necessarily have to determine how we behave in the next one.
Understanding where a pattern may have come from can be useful. But in the middle of a meeting, while everyone else is discussing the quarterly plan, understanding alone isn’t enough. We also need a way to recognize what is happening and find our way back.
Sometimes you don’t know something you probably should know. Sometimes you’re less experienced than others in the room. And sometimes a question really does reveal a gap in your knowledge.
The point isn’t to assume that every self-doubt is wrong. It’s to notice how quickly we can turn “I don’t know this” into “I shouldn’t ask this” or “I shouldn’t let anyone know I don’t know this.”
Those are different things.
Not knowing is information. What you do with that information is a choice. You can listen, ask, clarify, make a note to learn more later — or decide that this isn’t the moment to speak.
The difference is that you’re making that decision based on what the conversation needs, rather than on the fear of how you might be seen.
NIRS is a simple acronym for four steps that can help in that moment: Notice. Interrupt. Return. Say.
The first step is learning to recognize your particular internal conversation as it begins. It might sound like “I should know this,” “This probably isn’t worth saying,” “What if I sound stupid?” or “Maybe everyone here understands this better than I do.”
The important thing at this stage isn’t to change the thought. It’s to recognize what has happened to your attention: my attention has moved from the conversation to evaluating myself.
Before we notice that shift, the internal conversation can simply feel like part of reality. Once we notice it, there is at least some possibility of choosing what happens next.
Interrupt doesn’t mean stopping the thought or proving it wrong. The thought has already appeared, and fighting with it can keep our attention exactly where we don’t want it inside our own head.
Instead, recognize the thought without automatically following it. There it is again. I know where this can take me, and I’m not going there right now.
You don’t need to resolve the uncertainty while everyone else is discussing the quarterly plan. You just need enough distance from it to move your attention back to the conversation.
Then deliberately move your attention outward again. Sometimes starting physically is easier than trying to think your way out of thinking. Feel your feet on the floor, sit back in your chair, take a breath, and look at the person who is speaking.
Then reconnect with the actual conversation. Instead of “How am I doing in this meeting?”, return to “What is happening in this meeting?” What are people actually discussing? What are they trying to understand or decide? What am I noticing? What could I contribute?
That shift is at the heart of NIRS. It moves attention from self-monitoring back to participation. Return is not simply “listen again.” It is a deliberate move away from the version of the meeting taking place inside your head and back to the conversation that is actually happening around you.
And then say something. Ask the question. Add an observation. Ask for clarification. Build on what someone else has said. Offer a different perspective.
It doesn’t need to be the smartest or most polished contribution in the room. Saying something has another purpose here: it reconnects you to the conversation. Instead of watching yourself participate, you are participating again.
Over time, that matters. Not because every contribution will be brilliant, and not because the internal questions will disappear. But because the familiar sequence — thought, self-evaluation, silence — is no longer the only sequence available.
Notice. Interrupt. Return. Say.
The goal isn’t to never again wonder whether your question is good enough, whether you should already know something, or how you might sound to other people. The goal is to recognize sooner when that internal conversation has taken your attention away from the one happening around you, and become better at finding your way back.
