Scenario:
Person A says to Person B “You’re such a negative person. Being a positive person myself, I don’t get it.”
TWO problems with this statement.
First and foremost, Person B isn’t going to have some “OMG what have I done?” epiphany. In fact, they’ll probably just dig in to spite Person A.
Second, Person A hasn’t always been perfect. In fact Person B is aware of many instances of Person A showing negativity. And now, person A is not only going to get called on little things from ancient history, but they just lost all credibility with Person B.
Now watch this shift:
Person A says to Person B: “I’m not sure why you say so many things that feel negative to me. As someone who strives toward being positive, I’m just asking if there’s maybe another way.”
See what we did there?
By removing the “label” being applied to Person B (we are no longer saying “You’re such a negative person”), we now give Person B a starting point for receiving the message, with the opportunity to be persuaded to a new point of view without having to “admit” they are “wrong”.
Try it yourself.
Let us know how it goes.
0 Comments