vp-banner-advertise-with-us
Now Reading
Why do we over-explain and when to stop it?

Why do we over-explain and when to stop it?

Do you find yourself explaining every inch of something and notice that the person you’re talking to is just sitting there listening for a long time? One of the habits that get in the way of communication is over-explaining. 

What is over-explaining?

The best way to describe over-explaining is when you explain something more than necessary or helpful.

Why do we keep over-explaining?

The reason behind over-explaining can vary from different people. But I will be sharing some courses of my life I find myself over-explaining.

Coping mechanism

I overexplain from not being believed, from consistently being invalidated, or from being judged and shamed for my actions.

From the invalidation I get from other people, I think that what I am going through is wrong. Experiencing invalidation from other people for so long, their voices become my own. Eventually, I learned to invalidate myself. 

That’s why I overexplain to get others to understand me after being misunderstood for so long.

I do this as a security measure to protect myself from another possible invalidation from others.

Comes from fear

Most of the time, I fear sounding too harsh to other people to the point of using too many words or including too much detail before making my point. 

Also, sometimes I have a fear of not making sense and people thinking my idea is dumb. Thus, I end up overexplaining to emphasize my positions without realizing that it weakens my messages.

We want people to understand us

Sometimes, we’re overly committed to making sure the other person understands us. 

See Also

When I explain something to somebody and I don’t get the “I see the light” moment from them, I feel like they don’t grasp what I am trying to explain. 

We’re explaining something to a person and you can see they have no energy to comprehend what you are talking about even though they all have to capacity to do so but they chose not to.

Lastly, this one can vary. Let’s learn that people have different levels of understanding of a particular topic. 

For me, over-explaining does not necessarily need to stop. We just need to grasp the situation, reflect, and ask ourselves “Would I feel good if I do this?”, “Would it be helpful to me if I do this at this moment?”.

However, it would be best if we start telling ourselves “I don’t care to explain myself, they committed to misunderstanding me”, instead of overexplaining ourselves.

Scroll To Top