On a regular Friday at work, one of your colleagues come asking "Hey X, can I steal an hour of your time later today? I have this snag I've been struggling with this entire week"

You have been busy yourself the entire week and you still have quite a backlog to clear before you leave for what is looking like a relaxing weekend. This means your obvious response is NO. But rather than respond in like manner, a straightforward response like "I'm sorry Y, this wouldn't be possible, maybe next week Monday", you rather circle around and around with reasons and reasons you can't.

He listens with an obviously despondent expression while you ramble on about the endless reasons you can not help him. With disappointment, he acknowledges your reasons and says to you "Sure, that's fine, let's do it next week when you are free". He walks away.

This is an example of you over-explaining yourself to your colleague.

The fact is, you do not owe anyone justifications for why you're unavailable, especially with your personal time. Whatever the actual reasons, if you're not comfortable sharing them and your colleague wouldn't care and benefit from the details, then don't share them. Be straightforward. Go with a direct response, which often may sound inconsiderate, but trust that it is exactly the right response.

Over-explainers offer more than is necessary. They share more than what the other party in the exchange cares to know.

Let's see another example.

It's Friday and some of your colleagues are having a night out after work. They ask you "Hey X, are you joining us tonight?". You can not make it because you have already made plans for the night with your girlfriend.

A straightforward response from someone who is not an over-explainer will go like "Sorry guys, I have something planned for this evening. You guys should have fun tonight".

An over-explainer in declining this offer feels guilty. He feels responsible for how his friend may think and feel about his negative response. He ends up presenting a tall list of reasons and justifications why he can not hang out tonight with them. He rambles on for a while to put across a simple response of NO.

Over-explainers share more than is necessary because

1. They are compassionate and affectionate. Compassion is the common denominator for almost all over-explainers. Their compassionate nature drives them to present more than applies to the other parties in the exchange. They are overly caring and loving. They care about people's opinions of them. This means they go beyond and over to make others feel comfortable and not slighted. They are elaborate with information. They present extensive reasons and justifications why they take one course of action and not another. They give exhaustive information on how they arrive at decisions, even when the details and nuances aren't relevant to their audience.
2. They struggle (sometimes) with self-confidence. People who struggle with self-confidence are susceptible to speaking at length. They are many times struggling with thoughts of incompetence, imposter syndrome, speech disorders. To remedy these thoughts and overcome personality-related struggles, they spiral into the case of a long, repetitive speech and the overuse of filler words. They have a belief that if they keep talking, keep sharing, then maybe their audience will not notice their insecurities and anxieties.
3. They feel misunderstood. This should be quite common and obvious. Most of us experience discomfort when we feel misunderstood. When it seems our friends, colleagues, and managers are not understanding us. Over-explainers experience this regularly. Any indecipherable gesture or expression from their audience throws them into negative thought processes. These negative thoughts spiral them into questioning the validity and verity of what they're sharing. They panic and attempt to support their sentences, with more sentences to cement the message they are putting across.
4. Some are teachers at heart and carry the brunt of making people grasp the things they put across. Any sense of misunderstanding or break in communication triggers them to dump out more information, information which rather, unfortunately, exacerbates the situation in most situations — making people more confused and fatigued. People normally don't care about the nuances, only what's sufficient for their personal benefits. And over-explainers find it difficult to delineate that. They take responsibility to have their audiences come to the same understanding and enlightenment they have come to on whatever subject that is. They share every single detail that is necessary to elevate their audience to that same level of understanding.

Whatever the motives, over-explainers divulge more than is often necessary. The unrewarding reaction from many of their audiences suggest one thing; that over-explainers are boring and unexciting? Over-explainers become the last person anyone speaks to about any issue. People dread how protracted and overly complicated a conversation with an over-explainer will end up being.

The Negative Impact of Over-Explaining Yourself

1. You appear indecisive and unassertive

No matter how assertive and ambitious you are, if you speak elaborately with extraneous details when asked the simplest question, then that classifies you as an over-explainer and rather unfortunately many people will not recognize your potential and abilities.

Over-explainers come across as individuals without direction, without confidence, without a sense of certainty of what they really want. When they speak, they sound as though they are presenting the facts and calling for others to take the final decision.

But this is not true and far from it, over-explainers are not unassertive, neither are they indecisive. The problem they have is they feel emotionally responsible to present exhaustive information, to have their audience completely appreciate and understand their reasoning, why they are considering a certain course of action and not the other.

They appreciate the positive validation of their ideas and opinions by others. They, therefore, speak at length to communicate those ideas and opinions until they receive that sense of positive validation.

They are deep thinkers and are analytical. They bury themselves in deep works; they enjoy learning and research works.

They come across as indecisive and unassertive because they are constantly juxtaposing the positives and the negatives. They are constantly juggling many ideas around.

Over-explainers are more likely to be overlooked for leadership roles and top-level promotions. Because on the surface, they seem to lack the outward resolve, the succinct and forthright attitude deemed apt for most leadership roles. They may lose out to other colleagues when vying for leadership positions that come with autonomous decision making.

2. You lose your credibility

People discount over-explainers many times in a day.

I need to understand topic A. Maybe I should ask James. Well… maybe not. James will only confuse me with so many irrelevant details. Maybe I should rather speak to Samuel. I will have straightforward answers from him.

That is a typical example of how people discount over-explainers even when they have the depth of knowledge needed.

In fast-paced settings, where time-critical decision making is of utmost importance, over-explainers struggle to find their footing. Every day comes with an internal dread and anxiety.

2. You lose your charisma

Charismatic people have the tendency to attract and appeal to the loyalty of others. They cast a certain charm on them. This charm wins them the devotion and commitment of others. Such people, therefore, trust in the opinions and judgement of charismatic individuals.

Over-explainers find it difficult to exude charisma. They struggle to command the attention of others, or at least struggle with the feeling of constantly trying to command other people's attention.

They struggle with sustaining people's interest and concentration and some of their audience only pretend to be present and interested only out of respect and often duty.

3. You appear disingenuous

As an over-explainer, you sometimes are mistaken for a dishonest, disingenuous person. Why? People associate dishonesty with the giving of excuses and speaking at length.

When over-explainers are declining offers, invitations, whatever it might be, they communicate their reasons at length. They feel guilty and uncomfortable about disappointing others. They, therefore, attempt to manage the disappointment and the dreaded negative reaction from their recipients by divulging more information that is not necessarily relevant.

The recipient ends up processing and resolving these justifications only as excuses. This puts across over-explainers as dishonest.

People don't appreciate NO for a response. This dissatisfaction deepens when over-explainers go on and on with justifications and rationalizations when a straightforward NO would have sufficed.

4. You appear irresponsible

Yes! Others interpret over-explainers rationalizations, their detailed walk-through of their thought processes as nothing more than presenting excuses to shirk responsibilities. This is common in environments where workers' performance metrics are measured in deliverables, finished products and realized goals and not so much in the invested time, effort and the challenges encountered and surmounted.

An over-explainer, for example, who is a software developer, during standup sessions, may come across as making excuses and shirking responsibility when he goes on and on with the problems he's been struggling with and the different attempts he's been considering at resolving it.

Many people don't care about knowing the details of the process, only the finished works — and unfortunately, over-explainers have the tendency to care about such details.

As an over-explainer myself, I have learned and continue to learn consciously, when to cut out the details when the audience seems uninterested in the details.

5. You become boring and unexciting

Ask anyone and if they are forthright, will tell you, over-explainers are dang boring and unexciting. They are predictable. Most over-explainers are critical, detailed, regimented in their activities.

Over-explainers say the same thing in a million ways. Most of them are not spontaneous and may find a hard time having an exciting social life.

6. You struggle to uphold your boundaries with people

Over-explainers may struggle with maintaining good healthy boundaries with people, especially with family and work colleagues. They may end up taking up more responsibility than is necessary. And most of these responsibilities come with little or no credit.

This happens because of their desire to share and teach, and also their sense of responsibility to bring people up to speed with what they must know or think they should know about.

Lazy or less bluntly put, smart individuals may take advantage of this and push their responsibilities unto over-explainers. Over-explainers love recognition and validation and so end up struggling with saying NOs as much to people who may only look to take advantage of them to avoid performing their own responsibilities.

Over-explainers may therefore often end up overwhelmed with work but with little to no credit awarded them.

Takeaway

Over-explaining may not be a problem when you have the right audience in the room — an audience who share similar interest and excitement about the nuances and the extraneous.

When speaking to a general audience, aim at sustaining their attention and interest. To do that, consider these tips to minimize over-explaining yourself.

• Be confident in yourself and your knowledge.
• Stop double-guessing yourself and how you sound to your audience.
• Constantly ask yourself if the extra information you feel forced to share applies to your audience.
• Most people in any exchange are only interested in the superficial, only the information that applies and is relatable to them.
• Pay attention to the reactions and responses from your audience. Are they distracted? Are they yawning and zoning out? If yes, consider cutting out the fluffs and share only the pith of the message. If your audiences are keeping eye contact, are responding with head nods, positive verbal feedback, then you may be on the right path, maintain the cadence of the exchange.
• Disregard your inward feeling of responsibility to make your audience understand every single detail about the subject. Leave room for questions. If they don't understand anything, they will ask the question.