One Way To Learn Positive Communication
One of the challenges in leadership is having a consistent communication regardless of the circumstances. It ensures integrity and credibility, so it’s an important trait.
The tone you set is what you will get back. Influential leaders must be aware that even with their body language they can change whole cases.
Why does it matter?
Did you know that circumstances are only ten percent of what determines our happiness? What could be the other factors? Studies say that half of it comes from genetics and forty percent relies on our behaviour.
Forty percent is huge. So, if you want to be happier, you need to check your actions mindfully. Sleep enough, exercise more, smile more. We all know the formula, but seemingly something is missing.
Being positive is hard, and it’s not about being silly or ignoring the bad things. It’s an effort avoiding the dark side, so not being negative is way more comfortable than being always positive. If you change your mind and focus on the other end when you catch yourself being negative, then you’ll be more positive. The glass is not half empty, so it’s half full.
At work, it’s even harder because we bump into sad, burnt out and too defensive people every minute. So how can you remain confident and authentic at the same time? Let's see some helpful hints below.
Focus on output, instead of problems
The output is something positive. Something you can determine and then achieve. While the way is more important than the goal, working towards your result will keep you concentrate on the road and get over the issues.
Focus and discipline are excellent help staying on the target even when things seem difficult. Focus can keep your eyes stick to the long-term goal and help you understand that losing a battle and sacrifice today’s win will have its payoff tomorrow.
Discipline, on the other hand, can help you stay calm and keep up the focus despite all the distraction, multitasking and context switching.
Ask more questions
Questions are a great tool to coach others and work closely with people to find their needs. Also, these are powerful to remain positive in your communication. The “What would you do?” and “Why would you do that?” make others turn to the solution instead of circling the problem and thinking about what is not working. Get more insight. Focus on the possibilities and avoid driving or opinionated questions. Ask open-ended questions like “Why?”, “What if?”, “What if not?”, “What else?”, “How?”
For example: “How would you solve it?” is a better question than the “Why do you think you can’t solve it?”. The latter still focuses on the problem and on the assumption that it might be impossible to solve it.
Find the good things
Our brain is more sensitive to the negative impacts. The news is a good example. If something is shocking and ultimately harmful in the story, everyone will be interested, but if the reporter is talking about another newborn panda in China, well, yeah, whatever, we are not interested.
Although the toxic kind of news makes people less happy, it happens unconsciously. You will only feel worse and probably more upset than before. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is an excellent practice to shift our focus back to the right things.
Build your communication on strengths, positive examples and emphasize the positive behaviour. Although you must acknowledge the bad things, don’t try to fix everything. Focus on the successful details and make them repeatable patterns.
Wrap up
Being positive might seem hard and too generic. Turn the table and being less negative. Sounds easier?
You don’t need to fake it till you make it. Instead, be mindful and practice being positive till it will become effortless.
