Yes, we can motivate people by yelling at them. (How else would we explain the existence of Little League?) It does motivate people to do something, but it may not be their best. It may motivate them to hide. It may motivate them to do what it takes to get us to stop yelling. If our goal is to help cultivate a lasting and positive change in someone, we don’t want to start with showing them that we are out of control ourselves. Remember that no matter what the words are that come out, the message of yelling is, “Please, someone calm me down because I can’t calm myself down.”
If your goal is to whittle away at the foundation of your relationship each time you fight, here are 10 field-tested strategies. They are in no particular order and can be used in any combination you like.
There is one foundational strategy that is not optional. You must hand over control of your emotions to the other person. That way, when you get so mad that you yell, or behave in some other offensive manner, it is only because they have made you so mad. They had better try to keep you calm. If emotions cause you to shut down or get overwhelmed, it is also because they made you feel so bad. Either way, they better be more careful. This is known as the Eggshell strategy.
With that foundational strategy in mind, you are ready to pick freely from the 10 listed below.
We don’t get very far down the road of life without hitting disappointments. Some are like a bug on the windshield, some like potholes, some like a bridge out, and some like being blind-sided.
As children we may first suspect our disappointment is our parents’ fault when we can’t have that sleepover at Jimmy’s. Or, it’s our sister’s fault that we felt such disappointment when “she ate all the Captain Crunch. ” Maybe there was a time when we felt like Santa was the source of our biggest disappointment. To many children, of course, for these to be their only disappointments would be a dream come true.
As we move out of childhood, we are faced with proms, interviews, tryouts, auditions. We have little, everyday hopes about green traffic lights, details working out in our favor, work and school assignments, weather. We have secret hopes about relationships, acceptance, recognition. We have private hopes about marriage, pregnancy, finances, job changes. We have public hopes about recovery, healing, success in ministry or business, college admission. We even have some hopes that are so large and close to the heart that we have never had the courage to say them to ourselves.
I’ve been getting good feedback about the email subscriber option that was just added.
As a way of saying thanks for subscribing and getting your friends to subscribe, I want to send 2 free copies of the pocket-size book, The Other 167 Hours, to the person who becomes the 167th subscriber. That way you can keep one and give one to the person who told you about the blog. For privacy reasons, I won’t announce the names, but I will let you know when we hit number 167. I’ll contact the winner by the email address you provide when you subscribe.
167hours.net is just completing its first year and we are approaching 20,000 page views. Thanks again for reading and telling your friends.
I want to suggest that the only satisfying answer to the question, “Why do you love me?” is, “Because I can.”
This question is different from asking what you like about me, or what initially built an attachment between us. It’s okay to have specific answers to those questions.
I decided to add a nifty little tool, on the side bar to the left, that lets you get email notices whenever something new is posted. Frankly, I don’t mind you stopping by as often as you like just to check for new posts, but life gets busy and if a reminder will help, then it’s just the thing.
You supply your email address and you’ll get a link sent to you announcing each new post. That’s all you’ll get from it, no SPAM or strange emails.
Or, just stop by often.
I think the first of the year is prime time for work frustration and dissatisfaction. People are trying to get used to the idea of going back to work after the holidays, or still resenting the fact that they didn’t get time off over the holidays. There are stresses built into systems and organizations where we work, and there are individual vulnerabilities inside each of us. Improvements in either of these areas can make a huge difference in how we experience work.
The performance of medical staff, for example, seems to improve as the staff are able to address a few basic emotional questions. I want to discuss those questions here. Maybe I can focus on other occupations in future posts.
I want to point out that when I call them “basic” questions, I mean that they are important, universal, and foundational, not necessarily easy or trivial.
What right do I have to be here?
The “impostor syndrome” is that feeling that if other people only knew my faults like I did, I would be “found out” and have to leave. What do I do about the fact that I have faults and short-comings, even bad habits? When taken together as a whole picture, warts and all, am I still acceptable, even valuable here? Or am I just lucky no one has noticed yet? If I have settled this question, I can be properly assertive and focus on the task at hand instead of being anxious.
Boundaries and respect are important in all areas of life and almost always have to be learned from experience. I understand that marriage differs from soccer and since my wife’s shins bruise easily, I really don’t get the two confused very often. But, there are some similarities.
In college, I had the good fortune of being coached by a former member of the Brazilian national soccer team. English was clearly not his first language. He had some key phrases he would repeat, at varying intensities, trying to wring out the last possible bit of meaning from the words. Hand gestures were added liberally to the phrases to provide additional nuances. But the things he could do with that soccer ball!
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