Talk About Your Perspective
2012-05-31
Whether or not you have valid feelings or issues to discuss, how a feeling or issue is phrased can lead to good or bad results in the conversation. Positive communication can be enhanced by talking about your feelings and issues from your perspective. Talking about an issue or feelings that are not from your perspective may come across as being blaming, telling the other person what the truth is or telling others what they believe. Any of these possibilities may lead to conflict in a discussion. Using “I” or “my understanding of the situation is” statements are examples of techniques to use to indicate that your thoughts are from your understanding or perspective. For example stating that I felt hurt and upset rather than ‘you hurt me’ is an example of speaking from my perspective. A statement like ‘you hurt me’ may be perceived as an opinion or an accusation that the other person may disagree with or become defensive about. The other person may then comment on their differing opinion or defensively explain their actions, either way the feelings the first person was trying to express may be left unheard and un-responded to. Simply stating that I felt hurt and upset is more clearly my perspective and less of an opinion to be debated about. A common mistake made in communication is to mix using your perspective, such as with using an “I” statement for part of the statement and then using blaming or accusing comments in other parts of the statement. For example, if I state that I was hurt when you acted terribly, is a mix of an “I” and a blaming statement. Another mistake to avoid is in using “I” statements with the correct words which are accompanied with a blaming or accusing tone. It is important to note that even though the words of a statement may be correct, blame or accusations may still be happening with how the statement was said.