If you know what monotone means, then you also have a pretty good idea of how being monotone makes it so easy to be so boring. Being monotone doesn't just apply to your voice, but also to how you express yourself. The reality is that the majority of people are boring because of this. Today, we'll be going over the easiest ways to stop being monotone.

Stop being monotone, the easy way

Those ways of being less monotone are:

1. Use your damn face
2. Have variance in your voice
3. Tease and laugh
4. Be actually interested
5. Lower your filter

These don't take long to explain, but they do take effort to apply. So let's hop right into it.

 Use your damn face to express yourself more

Ever seen a poster on the highway in some obscure place? Notice how very few of them actually catch your attention? The reality for these posters is they're boring, and so they don't do much in the way of snagging customers. Your face is very similar.

Your face is one of the first things others see of you. If the impression they get from it is not favorable, it will work to your disadvantage. I've seen too many guys keep a stone-faced look when they should be smiling, and smiling when they should be stone-faced. 

A monotone facial expression is when you stay on one facial expression to the point where it's no longer appropriate. A facial expression that worked one moment may not work the next.

To properly make use of your face for the sake of expression, you need to know when to make a certain face and when to stop. In other words, use your face to express yourself but not too much.

It doesn't take much to express what you're feeling using your face. The key is to know how and when to swap from one expression to another.

This is one of the things on this list that takes the most practice, so don't be discouraged if you don't get it right away.

Being monotone comes from having no variance in your voice

An all too common example of monotone comes from teachers teaching their lessons using the same vocal tone throughout the entirety of the lesson. The end result of this is the lesson ends up boring and uninteresting. The same can be applied to how you use your voice.

If you keep your vocal tone the same throughout talking, you end up getting drowned out by people. Your voice becomes uninteresting and they subconsciously start to think you aren't saying anything important.

A key thing to note is that even if you vary your voice if you vary it in the same pattern then that will also count as being monotone. Therefore, the key to your voice not being monotone is to have variance, even amongst the variance.

If you keep the same pattern for your vocal tone or vocal rhythm, this is called a sing-song voice. Having a sing-song voice will make people disconnect from what you have to say.

Basically, having a voice that isn't monotonous requires you to vary both your tone and your tempo. Having variety in both makes what you say seem more interesting.

Tease and laugh, everybody loves a good time

When was the last time you met somebody who couldn't take a joke? The last time I met someone like that, it was a total drag. It's like they didn't know how to have fun outside of their sanitized bubble. When you interact with others, are you staying in your bubble?

Let's start off by saying that we don't want to insult people. There's a difference between insults and teasing, and most people are good-willed enough to be able to tell the difference.

An easy way to tell if a tease may be taken as an insult is to ask yourself if you could explain why it isn't an insult to somebody who took it the wrong way. If you can't, then it's a bad tease and should be avoided.

Teasing is lighthearted and fun and always helps to lighten the mood. Those who aren't able to relax with something meant to be lighthearted are inevitably isolated because everybody loves a good time.

To stop being monotone, you need to have some controlled chaos in your interactions. Teasing does exactly that.

If you aren't used to teasing, it can be tricky to pick up because it's not something we learn to do. Teasing is something innately part of us as children.

To become good at teasing requires you to dig into yourself and find out why you need to relearn it.

Are you scared of people taking it the wrong way? Are you scared of people telling you you're not funny? Are you scared of disapproval?

Whatever the reason, you need to dig in and find it. Teasing is something that is supposed to be natural, so if you aren't good at it it's very likely you have something holding you back.

Regardless of what holds you back, having practice with teasing never hurts. Plus, it's fun so it's a win-win all around.

A lack of interest makes you come off as boring

Have you ever had any experiences where somebody talked much longer compared to you? Chances are you seemed interested in what they had to say, so they kept talking and talking. One of the greatest fears people have when talking to others is running out of things to say. In reality, this can be easily fixed by simply being more interested.

People love to talk about themselves. Engage them in a topic they enjoy, and you'll find yourself listening to them for hours as they talk.

Too many people make the mistake of not listening and instead waiting for their turn to speak. While this isn't bad, there's a better way to do it.

To stop being monotone, you need to learn how to listen while waiting your turn. This takes care of two birds with one stone.

First, you get more material to work with. If you pay enough attention to people, they give you a lot of things to talk about, and even more when you show interest in what they have to say.

This circumvents the whole issue of running out of things to say and you don't need to use awkward small talk to revive the conversation.

Second, it'll make you seem more interesting to them, even though you aren't the one talking. 

So many people think they need interesting things to talk about in order to appear interesting to others. In reality, all you have to do is let them talk about what they're interested in and be engaged with it.

How much you know about the topic is irrelevant. What matters is how attentively you listen and how much you spur on the conversation.

Filtering words is naturally boring

Everywhere you look today, you'll see somebody who filters their words. You may even witness it happen live. While you shouldn't say anything inappropriate in public, you also shouldn't keep yourself so sanitized that you become boring. 

The other side of being afraid of running out of things to say is when you police your words too strictly. Of course you'll run out of things to say if you give yourself a very narrow subset of things you deem okay.

More often than not, the words at the forefront of your mind are enough. Others want to play off of the things you say, so if you say something then you'll get a response.

It's like the old adage of if you never ask you'll never get it. When it comes to talking, if you never speak to others, you'll never be spoken to.

It can take quite a bit to undo the conditioning to speak only when allowed or only when spoken to, but it's worth the effort. When you open your mind to conversation, talking becomes that much more enjoyable.

Stop being monotone by being more dynamic

The key to all the tips in this post is to be more dynamic with the way you express yourself. Too many people get scared of talking to others because of what they see on the internet. While I can't guarantee you won't run into those bad apples, the odds you'll encounter one are quite low.

By making use of these tips, you'll find interacting with others will become both easier and more enjoyable. Now go become the conversation casanova you want to be!

- Karl