Although many of us make new year’s
resolutions with determination and enthusiasm, often it’s not obvious what our
goals should be or even what we want to accomplish, but consider this. . .
If you want to change something in
your life, it's common to try to stop the behaviors you don't like. While this
certainly seems logical, it seldom works. The reason is simple - it
unintentionally creates a vacuum where the old behaviors used to be. And since
nature hates a vacuum it will fill it with anything it can find - usually the
very behaviors you're trying to stop since they're so familiar. Instead of
stopping certain behaviors, try focusing on the new behaviors you want and need
to develop. Eventually, with practice, these new behaviors will replace the old
ones.
I had a client who was
condescending with staff members and she wanted to change how she
interacted. When she asked for my advice
(in what I thought was a condescending tone!), I said, "Instead of coming
off as superior and stand-offish, what do you want to be? How would you like to be perceived?" She looked at me blankly and said, "I'm
not sure. I never thought about it that
way" "Good! Then let's start there," I said.
There are three steps to setting
communication goals for your self:
1.
Notice any pattern in either your personal or
professional life where you say you've got to stop communicating in a certain
way.
2.
Think about the way(s) in which you want to
start communicating in that arena.
3.
Be specific. Write down the exact things you
want to do.
Sabotaging yourself with negative thinking?
In his book, Learned Optimism, Dr. Martin Seligman wrote about a psychological
phenomenon that he discovered based on his 25 years of research: Virtually
every person has one or more areas where they feel unable to do something that
they really want to do. They’ve developed habits of thought that hold them back
from reaching their full potential. Seligman called this "learned
helplessness."
He conducted dozens of experiments
to demonstrate how animals can be trained to feel that they’re helpless. In
one, he put a dog into a cage with a glass wall that separated it from a bowl
of food. The dog was hungry and tried to get at the food by banging its nose on
the glass. After several hours, Seligman removed the glass. And what happened
then? The dog, who was still hungry, sat only a few inches away from the food
and never even attempted to eat it. The animal had become convinced that it was
incapable of getting to the food. So even when the obstacles were removed, it just
sat there hungry.
As you think about your
communication goals, are you stuck in trying to name those goals? Have you
convinced yourself that you’re incapable of reaching a goal that's important to
you?
If negative thinking is holding you
back, keep in mind that it is nothing more than a bad habit that you developed
somewhere along the line. And all dysfunctional habits can be replaced with
healthy ones.
Want help in gaining clarity for
reaching your most persistent goal? Send
me an email and let’s begin a conversation:
jp@jpr-communications.com
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