Preparing for a conversation you are dreading — a plain-language guide, when your attention is scattered

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Here is what tends to work, in the order that helps most.

Scattered attention is the raw material, not an obstacle.

If you only do one thing from this page, do the first point below. It is first because it removes the most friction for the least effort.

Decide what you want to happen, not just what you want to say. Those are different, and the second one often gets in the way of the first.

Write the first two sentences you will say. Not a script for the whole thing — just the opening, because that is where people freeze.

Decide in advance what you will do if it goes badly. Having an exit plan makes it less likely you will need one.

Plan one question you genuinely want answered. It turns a speech into a conversation.

Do four slow breaths before you start. Not to calm down — to give yourself a beginning.

Pick a time when neither of you is hungry, tired or about to leave. Timing prevents more bad conversations than phrasing does.

For the opening, sometimes. Beyond that, reading a script usually makes people sound less like themselves.

Let them. Being upset is not the same as the conversation failing. Pausing for a minute is allowed.

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