I have trouble talking to my boss but i HAVE to

I need to talk to my boss about an important issue that I've been avoiding discussing with her for many many months.

She's a good boss, i like her. Ive never had a problem and she's never had a problem with me.

But I'm like this with bosses in general, I hate confrontation with them. I try to avoid them at all times. I have no idea how to make myself mentally more comfortable with the idea of talking to her. Its giving me a lot of anxiety.

In that situation, what I would be feeling is that I would be worried that the boss would think less of me after interacting with me, or simply wouldn't like me, and that such a development would make things harder on my professionally going forward.

Here's how I solve this sort of situation. You might want to try it.

Pretend you're playing a character. Like a character on a movie, TV show, or play. This character is the person that the boss wants in this position. That the boss will like. That the boss will take seriously, address their concerns, understand them, promote them, etc. You know what your boss is like, so you probably have a good idea of the type of person that the boss would respond favorably to.

Now, you've already interacted with the boss before, presumably, so you don't want to change your personality entirely for this. Just make some slight modifications in what you say, how you say it, non-verbal cues, tone, body language, etc. This will give you greater confidence when talking to the boss and will put a bit of an emotional buffer between you and him/her, thus making it easier to control your emotions if the boss says or does something that makes you feel bad.

That's what works for me. Not sure how well that translates.

most bosses do not want to hear what you have to say
they base their decisions on faulty data (+ego )
jmho

Hey Little Archer,


Unfortunately, its not something I feel comfortable talking about on these forums. It is an issue though that I do have to bring up and I'm worried she will ask me questions. When I get nervous, I tend to ramble and I dont want to say the wrong thing. I have to watch the way I word it. I have to word it appropriately.

But in general, I've always been bad around bosses. Like i said, i really like my boss she's never had a problem with me and vice versa. I dont see her often because usually the shift i work, she doesn't come in during those hours. But when she IS in during those hours i try to avoid even going NEAR her office. these are on days when nothing is wrong, I'm always just nervous she will call me in to her office because i did something wrong.

so you can imagine how i feel now that i have to talk about something and its an issue. no boss likes hearing about issues.

Thank you guys, this all sounds helpful. I do think I should practice this, as if i were giving an oral presentation or something! =]

Little Archer, I dont know know those acronyms because I've been very lazy with trying to learn DBT but I do have a DBT workbook that I can always pull out and look them up.

thanks again!