Meaningful conversation starters as a tool for speaking practice

As the year draws to a close, I’d like to set you a challenge. Should you choose to accept this challenge, you’ll have the chance to both improve your speaking skills and have great conversations with the people you love.

The holiday season is the perfect time for this challenge, for two reasons:

• It’s the end of the calendar year, and therefore a time to reflect and look forward.
• There are lots of social gatherings as we come together to celebrate.

This gives us lots of opportunities to engage in meaningful conversations!

I don’t mind small talk. Surface-level conversation is fine in certain situations.

But I much prefer finding fun topics to talk about that allow me to learn more about both myself and the person I’m talking to. Perhaps you do too.

So here’s the challenge:

Use the next few weeks to connect with those around you by initiating meaningful conversations.

In the rest of this post, I’ll give you some meaningful conversation starters, tips on how to facilitate them, and ways to utilize the conversations to practice your speaking and expand your confidence.

15 meaningful conversation starters

Here are 3 groups of topics and questions to get a deep conversation going. Don’t plan on using them all. Rather have a look to find which ones you would enjoy talking about.

Looking back:

1. Where have you traveled this past year and what did you like best about it?
2. What was a challenge you experienced this year and what learning or benefit came from it?
3. What did you intend to do this past year but didn’t get around to doing?
4. What’s something you feel proud of from this year?
5. Did you start any new daily routines this year?

Looking forward:

1. Is there something you’d like to add to your daily routine for health or fitness?
2. What are some of your big goals for next year?
3. What do you want to learn about or learn to do?
4. If you had to learn a new sport/instrument/language/skill, which one would you pick?
5. How do you want to feel in this new year?

Questions of the heart:

1. What does success mean to you?
2. Do you consider yourself an extrovert, an introvert, or some combination of the two?
3. How do you balance keeping up with the news and maintaining peace in your life?
4. If you could change how the world is run, what change would you make?
5. What does tolerance (or respect, creativity, awareness, etc.) mean to you?

If you’re going out for a meal, pick just one or two questions to have ready. If you’re going to a party, you might have a few more up your sleeve to try out in different conversations.

How to start meaningful conversations

So how do you use these deep conversation starters to initiate meaningful conversations?

1. Introduce the question

If you’re mingling at a party, simply ask the question when there’s a lull in the conversation.

If you’re at a dinner party, you could say something like, “So I’ve been thinking this week about [topic] and, if you’re all up for it, I thought perhaps we could go around and all share our answers.”

Introducing the idea will invite clarifying questions. You don’t need to be rigid about the rules. Listen to the ideas that get brought up but quickly land on the process so that you can get to the good part– sharing your thoughts.

2. Make sure everyone gets a chance to share

At a table, you don’t need to go around in a particular order. Just ensure that everyone gets a chance to share their answer—including you!

Mingling at a party, usually if you ask others a question first, they’ll probably ask you for your answer once they’ve given theirs. But if they don’t, don’t be afraid to jump in before the conversation moves on.

3. Start your answer with, “For me”

By introducing your answer with, “for me,” you make it clear that you’re sharing your opinion or unique perspective. This reduces the chance that anyone will take offense at your answer, and it also indicates that everyone will have a chance to share.

4. Respond to others’ answers

If you’re in a large group, it can make sense for everyone to share their answers without commenting on other people’s. My family does this on Thanksgiving, so even if there are twenty of us, everyone gets a chance to speak.

In general, though, responding to each other makes for a much more engaging conversation and, ultimately, more connection.

Create a safe space for people to respond to each other by modeling a respectful response. All you need to do is mention something you like, appreciate, or find interesting about another person’s answer or say, “Thank you for sharing.”

5. Add more structure

If you think the group would be open to turning these meaningful conversation starters into more of a game, you could come up with some rules and guidelines.

For example, you specify that everyone has two minutes to answer the question or that everyone says one thing they liked or appreciated about what the person before them said.

Conversations make great speaking practice

Starting conversations like this is worth doing just to have fun and connect with other people. But you can also use these conversations to practice and improve your speaking confidence.

When it’s your turn to speak, remember these three things:

1. This is an opportunity to practice taking up space. Challenge yourself not to rush through your answer. Let yourself take center stage, even just for a minute.
2. Be curious about what you might say. Maybe you’ll learn something new about yourself.
3. Don’t pressure yourself to be “perfect” in any way. Rather, make it a spiritual practice where you honor, accept, and appreciate whatever happens to come out of your mouth in the moment. Even if next time you would do it a different way.

Here’s to having more meaningful conversations this holiday season!

I wish you a happy holiday season, plenty of great conversations, and delight in all your limelight moments.