Your sense of humor should be a strength, not a hiding spot. Know which one you’re using.

Humor works so well that it becomes the default exit. There is a version that pulls people closer, and a version that shows up exactly when a conversation is about to get real and steers it somewhere safer. Same joke, opposite purpose, and from the outside they look identical.

Watch the timing this week rather than the material. If the funny thing arrives right when somebody asks how you are doing, that is worth noticing. You can keep every bit of the humor and still let one conversation land without a punchline rescuing it.