Tag: voice

Blog/

How To Voice Your Opinion

Sometimes voicing your opinion can be downright tricky, especially when the situation is intense.  Our latest podcast, Your Voice Matters, offers great advice on how to get your point across.

Bestselling author Cai Graham says in a nutshell, it is about getting people to listen to you.  Check out this snippet from Your Voice Matters, offering succinct yet spot on advice on how to voice your opinion. 

Listen to the full podcast where ever you check out your favorite podcasts or subscribe to the show from this website.

 

Blog/

Having Your Say In the Right Way

Not speaking up has a negative impact on your emotional and mental well-being—at least it does mine.  It’s a bit like carrying around dead weight, weight that pulls me down in the dumps but as soon as I have my say, I feel uplifted.

Let’s be clear about what having your say means and what it does not mean.  First, things first! It does not mean blowing off steam or telling someone off at the top of your voice or engaging in a futile argument with someone about politics, religion, or morality for that matter.

It’s more about saying and doing what is healthy and right for you. And how you say it matters too, according to bestselling author Cai Graham, guest on UIO’s podcast, Your Voice Matters.

In our chat the author of The Teen Toolbox and I agree that having your say is not always as easy as it sounds. It can be tricky when there is looming peer pressure, for example. That’s why it is important to understand the difference between self-esteem and self-confidence and use them both effectively to get your point across, particularly when it matters the most.

In a nutshell, self-esteem is about how you feel about yourself in a particular situation and self-confidence is believing in your ability to do something.

Makes a whole lot of sense to me, which takes me back to my first point. Often when I am feeling low about myself or a situation, upon review I will conclude that I didn’t have the confidence to have my say. Owning and understanding this gives me the confidence to put it right and it often gives me a segue to the right words.

For example, I might say, you know I was thinking about our recent conversation and, I prefer we agree to disagree about women’s rights, political beliefs, whatever it is that has caused the upset. I need you to respect my views but as and when this is not possible, let’s not talk about it. Otherwise, it is a strain on our friendship, whatever the relationship is, and because I value it, it is imperative that we avoid these explosive conversations.

Now that’s confidence.  No screaming, yelling and naming calling, just putting your point across, remembering that your voice matters.  The namesake podcast is out September 6. Listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

 

Blog/

UIO Announces U Matter Campaign

With so many crises about, admittedly sometimes I feel like who I am and what I think doesn’t really matter much anymore.

Of course, some of our problems are eerily mysterious and seemingly beyond our control to find a permanent solution. Case in point: Covid 19. But even if it is not within our gift to eradicate it, effective governance of such a problem throws up questions about what matters most.

But this vlog is not about the management of Covid 19 or any other world crisis; we could debate such topics for hours, which many do.  So, I will refrain from that and rather focus on what really matters amid all the controversy, whatever the topic is.

The answer is ‘you’. That is why UIO is launching a new campaign, U Matter, with a new podcast series in early September.  Unfortunately, this will be our final podcast series as far as I know but more on that later.

What is key is that I continue to have a firm belief that teenage girls matter. Of course, all teenagers do but UIO has always been for and about teenage girls, tackling issues that disproportionately affect girls and women.

Thus, the U Matter campaign will feature four podcasts—Your Voice Matters with Cai Graham, Your Education Matters with Donna Morgan, Your Wellbeing Matters with Cat Williams, and Your Family Matters with Lisa Doodson.

I can tell you without a doubt that each podcast is packed with oodles of great information—all slated to rise to the top of the most listened to UIO podcasts. I say this because Voice, for example, is one of those topics that is always relevant, but some current trends tend to attempt to squash the voice of girls and women. And the fight for equal opportunity in Education continues throughout the world.

In addition, Wellbeing is a topic at the core of each of us. It is so important to remember that not only does physical wellbeing matter but emotional and mental health does, too.  So in this podcast, we focus on bullying.

And while it might feel clear at times that Family really matters, at others it does not.  Great societies are built on healthy families; there is plenty of research out there to back this up. But perhaps less research is available on the diversity and complexity of family structures nowadays.  Our podcast looks at the matter inside out.

Stay tuned for more information on the upcoming series. And rest assured that while the podcast aspect of UIO will wind down after this series, my commitment to teenage girls will step up.

It is my hope to work directly with as many girls as possible through organisations such as Compassion UK and schools, for example, throughout the world.  It is a matter of reallocating UIO’s resources to ensure that you the teenage girl continues to understand that: U Matter.

To this end, if you know of an issue that affects teenage girls and you think that UIO can help , contact me here.