Life is Easy - Part II No comments yet
Let’s take a closer look at some of the communication tools I mentioned in my earlier post. By now you should have had plenty of time to observe how you interact with others and hopefully you’ve had a lot of fun doing it!
These are some of the positive communication styles I have observed, which result in deeper connections, more fun, more friends, better results, higher energy and power for all!
Acknowledgment
Validation (Making others right)
Curiosity (Not knowing the answer)
Listening
Encouragement
Yielding (Making space for someone else’s point of view)
Humor
Humility (Admitting mistakes, equality, being human)
and above all a deep interest and respect for others!
And which are the ineffective communication styles, the ones that don’t get you what you want? Here are a few:
Objecting (arguing, opposing, fighting)
Complaining
Blaming
Criticizing
Knowing better
Inequality (playing ‘one up’)
Disinterest
Disrespect
Arrogance
Reading through the list, it is easy to see just how disruptive these communication patterns are and how they will not get you what you want. More often than not they will result in broken trust, fear and isolation. And still it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting to know better, of being right and arguing with others in order to get your way. It’s a habit that most of us have learned early on and that is hard to let go off!
Take objecting for example which is a form of arguing, disagreeing or fighting. When you argue to get your way you almost always lose your power and the trust you have established with the person you are talking to (one has to be ‘wrong’ so the other can be ‘right’), you isolate yourself and in most cases this really hurts! I have had clients who lost friends, businesses and marriages over the urge to fight and prove themselves!
What if you are right, though, you may interject? What if you do have a point you need to defend?
Well, do you? What most people miss is that by making someone right you are not automatically wrong. By accepting someone else’s opinion, you don’t have to give up your own. I dare to say, we can all be right.
Isn’t that a whole lot easier?
