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How To Communicate To Improve Your Relationships
If you want to understand why the people in your life don’t treat you well and want to learn how to get the respect you deserve then continue to read. By the end of this article you will learn how to communicate in a way that can only result in having genuine people in your life.
The way we deal with people and situations often stems from the lessons we learned in the early stages of our life. We closely watch the way our parents and significant people deal with others and situations, and take note of the response they get, and we might use whatever we see that works for them in our own life even as early as childhood. Whether this way is right or wrong, or healthy or not, if it seems to work why not use it right? Well not quite. Dealing with difficult people and situations using passive and/or aggressive behaviour is a method that is more commonly used than you might think. But they don’t work, well at least not in developing long-term, healthy relationships. How
Growing up we may have watched our parent/s display aggression towards someone when something went wrong, and this may have most of the time ended up with the other person ‘surrendering the white flag’. And while this may have at the time looked to you as thought mum or dad had ‘won’ as they walked away with whatever that ‘prize’ might have been at the time, the truth is that they might have gotten their way, but they didn’t win the person over. You see, for a person to surrender to aggression it usually means that they are someone who deals with most situations passively. Passive people will generally agree, accommodate, tolerate, sacrifice and adapt to anything and anyone to avoid a conflict, or in most cases rejection. Why? Because unlike people who have learned to get what they want through aggression, passive people have learned to avoid consequences by giving what they have.
Why Passive Behaviour Doesn’t Work?
Throughout our childhood we are conditioned to believe that we have to be liked by everyone in our life and that if we aren’t then there must be something wrong with us. This comes in the form of many confusing messages we receive in the playground, by our parents, siblings, and teachers to mention a few. So, we set off in life with the expectation that by being nice, accommodating and being tolerant towards everyone will be reciprocated, only to find out the hard truth that this isn’t the case. How can being nice to someone not work? The answer is simple – it won’t work with aggressive people who thrive on the power you give them every time you come back trying to win them over after they have mistreated you. Think about it. Aggressive people use aggression to intimidate others as a form of manipulation to gain ‘power’ over you, and to manipulate you into giving them what they want. Basically, you are feeding their ‘ego’. The more power the aggressor is given, the more they want and a more false-sense of confidence they develop. The less power the pacifier is given, the worse their self-confidence becomes and the more they strive for acceptance from their aggressor to prove their worth.
People who go through life pacifying others do so to avoid a conflict, consequence and rejection. They are usually people who have very little self-confidence, and who dread the thought of rejection – especially from the people they hope to eventually win over. What they don’t understand, is that if possible, they would actually benefit from not having these people in their life. They spend so much time wondering why that person does not think they are worthy of their acceptance, that they ignore the possibility that it might actually be the other person and not them that has the problem. ‘It can’t be them because it must be me’. A passive person’s self-esteem can be so low that they are likely to automatically blame themselves and overlook the possibility of it being the other person’s fault. The mistake a lot of people make is that they misinterpret aggression as confidence, when it is actually the opposite. You see in most cases, aggression is a symptom of fear and low self-esteem and often mistaken by others for confidence. And what is the most sort after attribute in someone? – confidence! We are all attracted to and want to be accepted by people who are confident – why? Because if they accept us then there can’t be anything wrong with us, right? – No, but unfortunately what a lot of people tend to believe. How to communicate to improve your relationships
Why Aggression Doesn’t Work
Most people who are aggressive do not have genuine relationships. They are respected out of fear and not because they deserve it. The boss that yells will only get what they want as long as that person needs the job or runs out of tolerance. If you closely observe someone you know who is aggressive, you will see that they usually have an entourage of passive people who have a tendency to say ‘yes’ not because they agree with them, but because they have to agree to avoid a consequence. Aggressive people are generally attracted to passive people because they make them feel worthy by giving them the attention and sense of importance that they need even if it is unwarranted. And if you observe even closer, you might notice that they usually rely heavily on these passive people to do the things that they may not feel confident enough to do themselves. An aggressive person uses aggression to manipulate, control and intimidate people into giving them what they want. You will also notice that those who have stood up to them are no longer in their life one way or the other, or don’t have much to do with them.
You cannot reason with an unreasonable person who is only interested in winning and not seeing the logic behind your argument. Assertive people present their facts to support their argument in a clear and tactful manner and are prepared to accept that they are wrong when proven wrong. They will also walk away from an argument that they know they will not win not because they are wrong, but because they know they won’t win the argument because the other person won’t (not can’t) see their point of view.
A relationship with an aggressive and passive person will never be a healthy relationship – no matter how accommodating or aggressive you are. Only when both parties communicate assertively can you have a healthy and genuine relationship.
Why Assertion Does Works
When you approach situations in an assertive manner you will either receive a positive or negative outcome depending on how the other person responds. Most people want a resolution to the presenting problem and want a healthy relationship and so are more likely to work with you at achieving a ‘win-win’ outcome. When someone clearly and tactfully communicates the problem or issue, how it is affecting them, and how it will affect the other person if it continued, a ‘win-win’ outcome can be achieved. For example, if I explain to my boss that the constant heavy workload was causing me stress, and that even though I love my job, I cannot continue to work for the organisation under this condition – I’m sure that if he considered me to be a valuable employee that this would make him pay more attention to this problem. Now you might be thinking, what if he took this as a threat and fired me. You cannot take a comment backed up by facts as a threat unless you choose to do so. Someone who cannot accept the evidence you present them to back up your argument, is someone you cannot reason with and therefore does not have your best interest at heart.
Assertion encourages people to respect you and with respect follows honest and open communication, and healthy and genuine relationships. It is not a skill that we are born with but it is certainly a skill we can learn. If you are someone who communicates in a passive or aggressive way and this is not working for you and your relationships then correct it by learning the skill of assertiveness. How to communicate to improve your relationships
