Did you really mean that? – “Power of Intention”

INTRODUCTION

 “But why the hell did you go out if you weren’t well?” – shouted Aliya at her husband! “Don’t you get it, I had to give my phone for repair, else all the work would have halted tomorrow” – exclaimed Satish who was sneezing and burning with fever. “It wasn’t that bad at that time anyway, else I wouldn’t have gone!”

Silence for a couple of minutes followed with a huge quarrel. All the last 5 married years details were discussed – how irresponsible Satish was, how work was the only thing on his head all the time, how many times he ignored Aliya because of work! and how accusing and judgmental Aliya was, how nothing was enough for her….!!!

Wait! Can you relate to this scenario above? It might very well happen at work as well. Here you go…

“Kris, I’ve been looking at your performance data since last 40 days, and I’m afraid that the results are not as expected. I suggest you start taking your work seriously and spend a little extra time getting trained, so your performance scores are better. ” – said Rohan with a concerned tone.

“But I thought I was doing ok, if this was the case, why did you not tell me before! ” exclaimed Kris. “I have been in constant touch with the customers, have resolved the most important cases in last 6 months, saved more than $100,000 with my new ideas in the past, and you are telling me to start taking work seriously, just because last 40 days have not been up to the mark?  I know my utilization is low, that too because I’m struggling with few things, but that doesn’t mean I’m not taking my work seriously or I need some training.”

I’m sure all of us have been through this type of conversation before.  This blog talks about a very simple yet powerful conversational technique to make our lives and relationships trustworthy, simpler and peaceful! The catch is to practice it consciously after you know about this technique..

DISCLAIMER : This blog covers only the simple aspects of conversation to build rapport and relationships at work and home. It doesn’t deal with the extremes like – Intention to kill or destroy.

POWER OF INTENTION

Most renowned leaders talked about “TRUST” being one of the key factors to build rapport and great relationships. However, TRUST comes with some efforts that we put into a relationship. 

Here’s my simple technique that works wonders to build trust. I’ve been practicing it for 85% of the scenarios at home and at work… and it works 100% of the times – 

When you have to communicate a difficult message –

1. SHED THE EGO – TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR INTENTION

Often, we leave the burden of understanding our intention, on the other person. He should understand how much I care for him, or he should know that I’m saying this for his good! 

The problem with that approach is, that we assume that we already have the established trust because we are related or know each other for a long time. That’s not true! You can be related for years, but “Trust” is never built without talking about our intentions of an action. Why do you think we connect with people on drinks/informal gatherings much better? It is because, in those gatherings, we shed our ego and talk heart to heart! 

Now another problem that I hear from my coachees is, I did tell him about my intention, but next time again he reacted the same way. How many times do I tell? My answer to that is – as many times as he wants to listen. It’s always better and emotionally easier to tell the intention rather than reacting and yelling.

“Why do we feel that ego to NOT tell our intention or how bad we are feeling?” What will go wrong if the other person knows that we are feeling hurt, or sad, or disappointed. Confessions like these don’t make us vulnerable, they make us stronger, more graceful and authentic!

Here’s a quick example – 

• Aliya told Satish – “I feel very sad and hurt when you are not well. I cant’ see you lying sick on the bed, it’s very hurtful to see you there. ” Can you please think about me, before you do this to yourself next time? My intention is to see you healthy and active.

What do you think Satish’s reaction could be?

• Kris –  I’ve specially called you for this meeting is because I’m concerned about your performance since last 40 days. Intention of this discussion is for us to come up with a plan to ensure that you are our STAR performer. Let’s talk about it and see what both of us can do to enable yours and team’s better performance in future.

 

The more and more we practice this art of telling our intention before the actual content, the more we build trust and rapport with others. There will eventually come a time, when you won’t need to explain your intention, it will be in an auto mode with the same person.

2. CLARIFY THE INTENTION

If at all you are the recipient in the conversation, it comes very handy to clarify the intention. This is a tricky one, specially when you don’t have trust or any established relationship.

It is important for you to identify and acknowledge how you are feeling about the first person’s ask/comment. Some people lack this ability to put a name to a feeling. For that I recommend them reading more about emotional intelligence or emotional vocabulary.

Until a point when you decide to take Sanyas, this emotional vocabulary will help you deal with reactions to most common issues in life. 

Here are some examples/statements to clarify the other person’s intention.

Example :

• Rohan, when you asked me to start taking my work seriously, I felt very disappointed. What exactly did you mean?
• Rohan, when you said that I should spend extra time on training, I felt very uncomfortable. How do you think extra training will help me?

After this, let the other person explain his/her intention. It is important to ask difficult/right questions to help the other person to clarify intentions.

An attempt to understand the other person’s underlying intention makes things and consequences much easier to deal with.

REMEMBER ALWAYS

• Sometimes, these questions to clarify intentions, can make the other person react further. It’s a good sign. Give time for him/her to react or come back. At-least you have made that first attempt to clarify instead of reacting.
• Sometimes, we make a strong presumption that the person’s intention is NOT right. In that case, we will never be able to establish trust and rapport, so any attempt to clarify intent or telling the truth will not help! – This is a deeper issue.
• It is advisable to give a benefit of doubt and trust the person’s intention when he/she’s stating it explicitly and question your own presumptions. Having a heart to heart about how you feel can also help in this case.

 

SUMMARY

Stating your intent and clarifying other person’s intent – Practicing these two skills will make you a great conversationalist over a very short span of time.

Please watch out your own intention before getting into this conversation – “It should be to build trust and rapport with the other person and not to prove him/her wrong!”

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“I am a power house! I attract success in everything I do…” ~ Bring more abundance to your life~

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes, even if you have all the skills, resources and plan in place, things go wrong! This happens, not once, not twice, but almost every freaking time you try.. Have you experienced it? If yes, then you must know this –

“One of the biggest reasons we don’t achieve our goals & wishes, that too repeatedly, is because of our own embedded limiting beliefs “

This blog covers some extremely important aspects of our belief system, which if unlocked, can create an abundant life.

As the intent of Positive Lights is to move towards abundance, this blog includes few tips and techniques using which you can re-wire your brain by replacing limiting beliefs with empowering beliefs.

SOME FACTS ABOUT “BELIEFS” THAT YOU MUST KNOW

What is a Belief?

It’s a feeling of certainty about what something means. For example: Success is an outcome of hard work, Time is money, Marriage is a huge responsibility etc.

Where do these beliefs come from?

Most of our beliefs are generalizations about our past, based on our interpretations of painful and pleasurable experiences. These beliefs could have been created “Consciously or unconsciously”. Sometimes it’s the education of our parents, sometimes our interpretation of a situation. We may have beliefs about rights, duties, abilities, permissions and so on.

Types of beliefs

Beliefs can be classified basis how they impact you. There are few beliefs that makes you feel stressed, heavy and sad. On the other hand, there are few that give you strength to move on or bounce back.

For me following beliefs really helped in life – I’m a strong resilient woman, I take challenges as an opportunity to shine more, Give your 100% in whatever you do else don’t do etc. etc.

However few that were counterproductive for me were – “Money never comes easily, you need to work hard for it!”,”Life is tough and full of tests and challenges”,  “If I’m laughing,I’ll have to cry harder in few days” etc.

How do our beliefs impact our life

The more we think about our beliefs, the more it gets engraved in us. We tag things right and wrong using our belief system. Our behaviors and actions naturally start aligning to those beliefs and we tag our self identity with them. So much so, that sometimes these beliefs start limiting us and sometimes these beliefs take us to a highest point in life.

I remember the time when I lost a loved one, months passed by, but there was no respite. Hurt wasn’t reducing, I wasn’t able to laugh. No matter how much I tried to laugh, it would always follow with tears afterwards. I didn’t know why! I was feeling frustrated and so were people around me. It was much later, when someone just asked me a direct question – “Is it that you believe that you can’t laugh as it is not right”,  or “how can you laugh when such a big loss has happened in your life?”

It disturbed me, I kept thinking and thinking about it. And what occurred to me after all this thinking was this STRANGE unconscious belief –

“Now on-wards, my life has ended, and I can never laugh. If I laugh and enjoy, people will think I am over it, and that’s not right!”

Half of my pain and hurt was gone by just this powerful realization about my own belief. After that, I worked consciously to get over it. I had to be OK with what happened, and that it was OK for me to be happy! I deserved a lot more happiness in life.

This is a clear example of “LIMITING BELIEF”. Few other common examples of limiting beliefs are given below: 

• “Life is tough and full of challenges”
• “I can’t tell the truth because I may get judged…”
• “I don’t want to get close to this person lest my heart gets broken…”
• “I don’t want to ask for what I want because, what if I get rejected?”
• “I can’t trust people because I’ve been betrayed before…”
• “I can’t pursue my dreams because I don’t know what I’d do if I fail…”
• “I can’t do X because of Y…”
• “I can’t do A because of B…”

If you identify with any of the above beliefs and feel stuck in life, you are the chosen one who’s meant to be reading this blog 🙂

WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT THESE LIMITING BELIEFS?

• Validate if it is really a “Limiting Belief”
  • There is a question of whether limiting beliefs are actually good for us and whether they keep us from harm. In practice some beliefs which limit us are actually valid beliefs which are worth keeping. The problem is telling the difference. Limiting beliefs are erroneous, being based on wrong ‘facts’ and so prompt us to treat things with undue caution. Example : You should never trust anyone in business
• All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs. The moment we begin to honestly question our beliefs and the experiences we assign to them, we no longer feel absolutely certain about them. This opens the door to replacing your old, dis-empowering beliefs with new beliefs that support you in the direction you want to go.Example:During a coaching session, I questioned one executive’s belief about not being comfortable to have a small talk with his global counterparts. After some thinking, he was stunned when it occurred to him that it was “because he had a belief that he shouldn’t be open to outsiders and in his work context his native colleagues were the family, while the global counterparts were outside family. Only this realization about the limiting belief changed his perspective and he has turned the tables at work now”.If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things other people are certain are impossible.
• Replace your limiting belief with an empowering belief. Few examples of empowering beliefs are mentioned below. You can also create your own empowering beliefs.
  • I am a power house! I attract success in everything I do
  • I always have time to do stuff that I really want
  • The past does not equal the future
  •  Everything happens for good, we might not know the reason then or ever after
  • I find great joy in little things… a smile… a flower… a sunrise…
  • I love freely because it is part of being human, with each heart-break I learnt how to strengthen my relationships in future
  • If I’m confused, something great is going to happen in my life and I’m about to learn something
  • All human beings are born prince/princesses, I respect all point of views and disagreements
  • I believe in taking immediate actions after the planning is done
• Energize and empower your beliefs each morning
  • Write your empowering beliefs somewhere and read every morning (by doing this you strengthen your neural pathways and finally it becomes permanent belief in 21 days of daily repeat)
  • Think about all the times when you were able to change your belief in the past, example – you believed that you could never drive a car, but you learnt and can drive now

“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy.” – Anthony Robbins

My 30 day challenge to you!

• Pick up ONE limiting belief that is stopping you from achieving your goal
• Convert it into multiple empowering beliefs, write them on a paper or mobile and read as many times as you can in a day – for 30 continuous days
• Tell me your experience!

All the very best!