Friday, October 2, 2009

SPEAK EASY NOTE #5 - Taking Responsibility

Monday of this week was The Day of Atonement. This is the most solemn Jewish holiday of the year, a day of fasting focused on repentance and forgiveness. At the very core of true remorse, apology and pardon is the essential concept of taking full responsibility for your actions, thoughts and communications. When I said that this week we would look at neediness in communication and how word patterns can reflect how we relinquish responsibility, there was no connection in my mind to the coincidental timing of this holiday and the subject I had chosen to write about next.  Taking responsibility for what and how we express ourselves is critical for communication success.

There are many ways we use language as a crutch to avoid taking responsibility. Let's look at ways we do this in an excerpt from SPEAK EASY – The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success, available for purchase through Word Craft Press:


Replace Needy With Whole
There’s an unrecognized phenomenon that underlies the cause for people to feel they don’t have the right to express how they’re making choices. As a result, people say they have to do a certain task or they can’t do something, rather than say they’re choosing one option over another. Often children will tell us they can’t help doing what they’re doing.  As adults, when we say, “I can’t help it.” or “I can’t do XXX.” what we’re usually experiencing is frustration, challenge or difficulty rather than actual inability. We will feel much less helpless about life’s challenges if we replace “can’t” with wording that is more in sync with reality. Rather than say “I can’t”, we can say:

“This is difficult to do.”

“I’m finding it very frustrating to do this.”

“I see XXX as a big challenge."

Another way we push ourselves around and get caught in a trap of our own making is when we say, “I have no choice.” about a situation. We may feel like there’s no way out or that our obligations are so strong they negate other options. It’s still better to say, “Based on the strong sense of responsibility I feel about this, I’m making the choice to stay involved.” When we say we have no choice, we’re denying or fighting our responsibility and our choice on some level.

What we are looking at is how:

> People let language become a crutch they use to relinquish responsibility and shift it onto some unknown force.

> Feelings of guilt and insecurity sneak into language patterns and become habitual.

> Needy syndromes can infiltrate our communication, acting as barriers to feeling whole.

To recognize all of this more clearly, let’s compare two different ways of communicating choices:

AVOID: “I can’t go with you to the concert because I have to go to a lecture with my brother-in law. Thanks for asking me.”
BETTER: “I would like to go to the concert with you. I promised my brother-in-law that I would go to a lecture with him and am going to keep my commitment. Thanks for asking me.”

AVOID: “I can’t go to dinner tonight because I have to do my laundry.”
BETTER: “I want to do my laundry tonight so I’ve decided to stay in rather than go out to dinner.”

AVOID: “As a payroll supervisor, I have to make certain that all checks have been properly reconciled.”
BETTER: “As a payroll supervisor, I’m in charge of making certain that all checks have been reconciled.”

AVOID: “I can’t drive a car in Manhattan.”
BETTER: “Since I have only driven a car in Ohio where I grew up, I’m afraid to drive a car in New York City.”

AVOID: “I have no choice about this decision. I’m stuck with this until the end.”
BETTER: “Since I’ve invested so much time in this project and care about it deeply, I’ve decided to stick it out until the end even though I have a sour taste in my mouth related to what has just occurred.”

Neediness in language is self-defeating, weak and most often inaccurate. An amusing saying grew out of the Women’s movement: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” In the world today, many people are choosing a variety of alternate lifestyles that would certainly validate this statement. The importance of the statement, from a communication standpoint, is how well it demonstrates the distinction between desire and requirement. So often we confuse the two.

Compare two different ways of expressing the same desire:

“Without a spouse, my life is incomplete.”
“I want a partner to share and enrich my life.”

The communication paths away from neediness and into wholeness are:

AVOID: “I have to …”
BETTER: “I want to …”

AVOID: “I can’t …”
BETTER: “This is difficult to do.”

AVOID: “I need …”
BETTER: “I would like …”

AVOID: “I have no choice.”
BETTER: “I have decided that …”

Next Friday, let's look at one of the most essential ingredients to reflect that we're really listening.

Until then,
The Wordsmith

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