In my youngsters days, at some point, I felt uncomfortable when someone told me one of these phrases, and even though I’ve learned how to act upon them, these for me are the top 5 things no one enjoys listening to and I want to share them with you. I’m pretty sure you will even agree with me on the reasons why.
1. “The truth”
When it comes to being 100% honest no one enjoys to be the recipient of any information when it’s not something we would really like to hear. We gladly receive information such as, how good you look, how intelligent, brilliant and/or smart you are, or how well are you doing something, but if on the contrary, what is being said is something you never want to hear from someone else and at the same time happens to be true, the feelings and emotions you may experiment can negatively impact your reactions, relations and sets the tone of the day.
If you are not there yet in terms of applying emotional intelligence in this type of situation, allow me to take a minute here and suggest you do this exercise (personally I have done 2 times in my life):
Ask several people who know you enough to give you feedback on how they see you as a person either in a specific area of your professional or personal life, do this by selecting people who know you from different environments, can be either from the university, family, friends, co-workers, church, etc. but with those who you already have some significant connection of friendship and ask them to be as honest as possible.
When asking this you must be prepared to receive their views, verbally or in writing (depends on how you prefer to receive it), and acknowledge the “not so pleasant information” with the same serenity that you will take the positive one. So you can discover not only how you are seen, but you’ll be aware of how you project yourself and probably decide to make some adjustments if you feel it will help you in any way.
There will be cases in which you do not agree with what is being said, but my suggestion is that you go deeper and ask for examples. Sometimes one single action or reaction in a specific case can influence the way people will expect you to react in similar situations and one case does not actually define who you are.
2. “You are not capable of doing something”
Let me just start by saying that people often tell us this because they themselves have not been able to achieve their own dreams and goals or in worst cases, have not even tried and this phrase is nothing else than a reflection of themselves.
When pursuing a dream you need encouragement, words that will inspire you to continue, to build and feed the confidence in yourself and not limiting you or make you think that your dreams are just that, dreams, and that they will never be able to become your reality.
3. “What you “have” to do”
The phrase “have to” creates anger and resistance to many people, but in many cases it depends on the tone it is being said and from whom is it coming from and the reasons why is that as kids, it was normal to hear our parents, teachers and other adults start sentences with this phrase, and till now for some of us it continue to feel as we are being treated like kids as it can be associated with superiority to whom we owe obedience and respect as we did to our parents when kids.
4. “Now you see? I told you so”
Before I tell you why we do not like to hear this phrase, allow me to share a very important piece of information in case you have never heard it before, “The moment you made up your mind and decided to do something, even when everyone else did not agree with you, it is always the right moment to do so, never doubt it”. This is true just simply because at that moment you felt confident to go ahead despite the opinion of others, and you should always action when you feel confidence.
You never know the outcome for sure because decisions are mostly taken based on intuition, inspiration or faith and whether results are what you expected or not you always be satisfied with the fact that decision was yours.
Now, going back to point number 4, listening to someone telling you “I told you so” when something negative happens makes you feel unsuccessful or foolish and that this person knows more than you and that means you didn’t know what you were doing. Keep in mind that you only grow when you learn and that is the why we all go through mistakes and errors.
5. “With all due respect…”
When you hear this one you already know that whatever follows it is definitely not a happy conversation to have. This one is nowhere close to something you want anyone to start a sentence with simply because there is nothing to say after this phrase that we would love to hear. Many people think of this phrase as the key that allows them to open the doors that lead to any type of comment they feel like saying, not caring if it will do more bad than good.
Here I give you a word of advice, if you let your guard down when you hear what remains to this phrase, analyze it to see whether they are right or not and make the necessary.
“At the end of the day, in the middle of it all, don’t forget to Stop, take a Deep Breath and Enjoy Life”
Jessica Applewhaite
Motivator and Life Coach for women / www.jessicacoach.com
