Growth is when your first reaction starts sounding like your best one.

For a long time your good responses arrive late, after the conversation, when you have had time to think. The first reaction is the old wiring, and it runs before deliberation catches up. What practice does is move the considered answer earlier, until it is the one that appears. That is why the gap between your instinct and your judgment shrinks over years, not weeks.

Notice the reply you wished you had given and say it out loud afterward anyway. Rehearsing it is not fake but how the new default gets installed. Give yourself a two second pause in the moment, which is all the head start you need.