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Look to the past to identify current communication challenges

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This is a tough pill to swallow, but it’s an essential point of transformation and freedom. We cannot heal what ails us if we refuse to look back to see where the pain began. This is not to be confused with dwelling in the past.

Patterns of communication and patterns of behaviour that create havoc in our lives today started from somewhere. This is one of the most challenging pieces I work with clients on and one of the most challenging pieces I’ve had to work on myself. Because, it means putting our family of origin under the microscope — our parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles and anyone else who had a hand in raising us.

It means taking those we looked up to as children down from their pedestal and taking a hard, honest look at their humanness and whether they were the best examples of what we aspire to be and do, today.

It means coming out of denial and being truly honest and admitting to ourselves if the environment we were raised in was filled with criticisms, manipulation and discord instead of the nurturing, loving and kind environment we so badly want to believe it was.

It means asking if this place was the beginning of the unhappiness we feel now and why we struggle so much to talk about it and ask for the help we need, today.

Asking these questions can feel grimy. Like we’re criticizing, disrespecting or betraying our family of origin in some regard. Like we love them less. Like we are bad for doing it. In some cultures (including my own), we’re taught to never shine a light of question on our elders or our family. You’d be deemed ungrateful to. Who does that serve? What if what’s being kept in the dark is abuse, oppression or some painful secret? What if shining light on it can lead to freedom, joy and ease? Would that not be worth it?

How you speak up for yourself, how you communicate and honour boundaries, how you relate to others and communicate in your relationships and business – they’re all influenced by what you grew up in and what you were taught. You may not be able to change that, but you can certainly now look back on it to learn and recognize that you have the option to make a different choice, today.

Is your self-talk naughty or nice?

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Why Self-Talk Matters to Communication

 

Your self-talk matters. It influences the words coming out of your mouth, how you feel about yourself and the decisions you make. And what better time of the year to become aware of how helpful or harmful your self-talk is.

Over the next couple of weeks, many of us will be busy shopping for gifts, attending parties and holiday dinners, reflecting on the year that was and making plans for the year that’s ahead. Through it all, self-talk will be blabbering up a storm! The busier and more stressed we become, the more it chatters.

Self-talk is tied to our belief system

What we believe about ourselves is reflected in the content and tone of our self-talk. If you believe you’re great under pressure, your self-talk will cheer you on from the sidelines as you navigate the shopping mall filled with last-minute holiday shoppers. You’ll feel motivated and focused and you’ll accomplish what you set out to do. If you believe the opposite, your self-talk will berate you for procrastinating and you’ll move from store to store frustrated by the crowds and the seeming lack of good gift selection.

You take whatever emotions your self-talk evokes into the rest of your day and it will influence how you show up. Now think about this from the standpoint of your business or your job, your relationship or your health.

Self-talk can be retrained

It takes awareness, a desire to change our beliefs about ourselves and intentional action to shift our self-talk from naughty to nice. Here’s an exercise I share with clients to help them become aware of the nature of their self-talk specifically for the context of end-of-year reflection and next-year planning. As you reflect on what you’ve accomplished this year, listen for whether your self-talk celebrates or plays down your achievements. As you plan for the year ahead, what does your self-talk say about your goals as you write them down? If your self-talk is nice – great! Amplify it and let it cheer you on. If it’s naughty, that’s OK. You now know it’s time to make a change.

Authentic and powerful communication starts with self-talk

What you’re saying inside is being communicated on the outside even if the words you speak are not the same. I’ll say it differently: If the words you speak are not in alignment with how you feel about and perceive yourself, communication misses its mark. There will be no accompanying integrity or trust.

When we use an inside-out approach to communication, there is no doubt about who we are and what we stand for. The alignment of our beliefs with our self-talk and the words we speak results in ease, authentic connection and power. Imagine what you could do with that!

As we end the year, I encourage you to spend some time listening to you talk to yourself. Yes, I know how that sounds. BUT it could make all the difference in how you show up in 2019. And if you find you need a little help, that’s what I’m here for.

Happy Holidays and warm wishes for a prosperous, joyful and healthy new year!

Befriend your intention

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Befriend your intention in communication

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think about the last conflict you had and the interaction(s) you had to resolve it. What did you want to achieve? No, what did you realllly want to achieve?

None of us are strangers to at one time or another saying we want to resolve a conflict, but entering into peace talks with the real aim of proving we’re right or showing the other person we know more. How do those conversations usually turn out?

All communication begins with intention. You’re either conscious of your intentions or you’re not. Our true intentions – not always the ones we say we have – will play out in the words we use and how our body and voice express themselves in all our communication experiences.

Why is intention so important?

Going into communication with one stated intention and having our words and body and voice demonstrate another quickly leads to loss of credibility and trust. And quite possibly even a loss of clients, a promotion, relationships, sales, and so on. We feel disappointed in ourselves for our lack of desired results, and we may not understand why, because we’re unaware of the crucial role intention is playing in the background.

Here’s another example. Say someone reaches out to you to have a one-on-one networking or informational meeting under the premise of getting to know each other and making a connection. You attend the meeting and after half-an-hour or so you find yourself viewing a catalogue of products and listening to promotions and you realize, “Wait a minute – am I being sold to?” Yes, you are, and you further realize this wasn’t an informational or networking meeting all along. At one point or another (or maybe more often than we’d like) we find ourselves on either side of this equation. It doesn’t feel so good, does it?

Honesty is the best policy

There’s nothing wrong with the intentions of selling or even proving you know more – as long as you’re honest with yourself and the other person or people about them and you recognize how your true intention is going to play out in an interaction through your words and body language and voice.

Owning our intention in communication requires us to look at ourselves on a deeper level and asking questions about who we are, what we want and how we want to achieve it. When we do this and own our intention, as well as share that intention with the person or people we’re communicating with, we’ll come across authentically, build trust and relationships, and likely have win-win outcomes.

Get to know your intentions

Think back to your last challenging conversation and see if you can pinpoint your true intention and whether it aligned with or differed from the intention you said you had before having that conversation. What were the outcomes of the conversation? How did the person or other people engage? How might those things be different if your intention were different? Do the same thing for a presentation or a meeting you recently had. Take notes and see if you can identify themes or patterns. If you notice a real, consistent disconnect between your stated and true intentions, you may want to explore why further, so you can begin to get the results you want from your communication.

This week’s challenge

Take a moment before the major communication events you have scheduled over the next week to acknowledge your true intention with respect to your stated intention. Notice if there is alignment and pay attention to how the intention plays out in your words and body language and voice in each of those communication events. If there is misalignment, take some time to realign before the event and experience the difference in your results.

In our next post, we’re going to explore what’s important to you and the value in knowing how it defines your unique communication blueprint.