Did you ever have someone pass you in the hall when you were having a bad day and say, “Smile!” You probably wanted to put out your foot and trip the person. THAT would have made you smile, right?
Not so fast, grumpy. By encouraging you to brighten up your outlook, that person might very well have been doing you a favor.
Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism, has done profound research that shows that optimists tend to be far more successful than those who interpret events as negative.
His research shows that successful people explain good things as positive and permanent: “That’s how it always is for me.” And they describe less optimal results as not likely to happen again: “That’s just not like me.”
Most conflict in the workplace, in marriages, and in any relationship is a result of someone’s filter that hears the worst possible interpretation and then fights against the other person as if they actually said it—even when they didn’t say it and moreover, don’t mean it!
The great thing about your attitude is that you can change it for a powerful shift in results. There is no longer the need to hear the worst, imagine the worst, and therefore, fulfill the promise of making the worst come to be.
As an experiment, set the intention that whenever you hear a request or a thought from another person, you will run it through the best possible filter, the one that says they are on your side and want the best for you.
You can even make it systematic. For one day, for every substantial conversation you have, write down the exact words the person said. Go back to the person and ask, “What I think you said was xyz. Is that right?”
Then tell them what you thought they meant. Ask if you interpreted correctly or if there was anything that you added that wasn’t there. When they make adjustments, repeat those and ask if you heard them correctly.
Make a log of the findings. You will undoubtedly find a pattern. For example:
- You wrongly assumed they didn’t like you.
- You wrongly assumed they were saying you were doing something wrong.
- You wrongly assumed that they were trying to say something to hurt you.
Reset your programming so that whenever you hear a request or a thought from another person, you will run it through the best possible filter, the one that says they are on your side and want the best for you.
Then notice that life just became infinitely better.
Quick tip
The next time you find your temperature rising after someone makes a statement, take a quick minute to find two other ways to interpret it—including at least one positive way.