Reinventing Yourself: How To Become The Person You've Always Wanted To Be

Author:Steve Chandler [Chandler, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-04-03T20:02:00+00:00

Give up: I'm right, you're wrong

The worst way to communicate in a relationship is to make someone wrong about something. The minute my communication has you thinking you're wrong, I've put you on the defensive, and real communication has been replaced by the need to survive.

When I make you wrong, your first reaction is to defend yourself. And then by defending yourself, you become more convinced that you're right. The more convinced you are, the less likely you are to change.

So by criticizing other people, we are increasing the behavior that we object to. Not a very effective way to build good relationships. Even if we say to ourselves that we are being "constructive" in our criticism, we are not. All criticism that makes someone feel wrong and defensive is destructive.

So if there's a victim in our lives, the worst thing we can do is make him or her feel wrong for being a victim.

The best thing we can do is ignore the victimized thinking and wait in the bushes for an ownership moment. No one is a total victim. Everyone has moments of pure optimism and spirit. The trouble is, when those moments show up, we usually highlight them in the worst possible way. We usually comment on how rare the moment is.

"Well, where did that come from!" we say. "That's not the Michael I know. Did you have a religious conversion or something? I'm usually the one who recommends these things, not you. I'm the one who has to always show us the bright side, not you. To what do we owe this rare and unusual moment? What have I done to deserve your first positive thought of the new year?"

By highlighting the rarity of the thought, we discourage our victim from thinking that way again.

The most effective treatment of a rare ownership moment is to really reward it, and in a sincere way, that encourages the victim to come up with another one soon.

When the victims in my life share an ownership moment with me, I like to slow down time. I like to stop the clock altogether if I can and really enjoy the moment. I like to tell other people about the victim's ownership thinking, and refer back to it in the days ahead. I like to do as much with it as I can so that the victim begins to look for more ownership thoughts to create.

We don't have to wait until a victim changes into an owner. A victim is already an owner. The problem is in the frequency of expression of ownership. Once we get good at honoring that expression, the moments will increase. The more we can relax about who the victim is, the more freedom that person has to experiment. Soon, the victim's old personality disappears and they learn to be strong.

So, how do you change a victim?

See the owner in them.

Stop making them wrong.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.