I Really Feel It
As I wrote about and reflected on this past Sunday, we may often be dissatisfied. There are often things that we do not like or enjoy.
And, most of those things are caused or created by others. How do we address that? I like to think of the platinum rule.
The golden rule states, “treat others the way you want to be treated”
But…
The platinum rule states “treat others the way they want to be treated”
People are all different. People are all entirely different and completely unique. But, as I had written about dissatisfaction and been focused on negative emotions, I’ll stick to emotions for now.
Today, I’ll post about my experience with people who tend to be more emotional and then on Thursday, I’ll post about my experience with people who tend to be more unemotional.
I’ll focus first on dissatisfaction and my experience sharing things that have caused me to be dissatisfied with the people who are responsible.
The people who really feel strong emotions, generally speaking, they just loveeeeee for you to share their strong emotions.
They’re proud, they want you to be proud too
They’re excited, they want you to be excited too
They’re satisfied, they want you to be satisfied too
But. What if you aren’t satisfied? Again, everyone is unique and often, I catch myself approaching these type of situations differently with everyone.
Sometimes, when I know that all someone wants is for me to be satisfied, I’ll focus on only the positive and try to implicitly express my dissatisfaction. But, that is not very effective. People that want you to share in their emotions want you to… share in their emotions. So, by implicitly expressing dissatisfaction or waiting to share that dissatisfaction with them, they may feel a bit of unrest, to say the least.
Now, as I said, in my experience, everyone is entirely unique and even when two people are very similar, I still aim to tailor my approach differently.
If someone is extremely excited about something and I am not and I can visibly see their emotion, I definitely want to share in that excitement with them, not for me, but for them. So, I ask for a little context. If they’re excited to go on vacation to the same spot they’ve been to for 10 years and always complain about, I might want to see why. So I ask. But again, there are different ways to ask and those should always be different for everyone. For one person maybe I would just straight ask them why they’re excited. For another, they may be offended if I cannot realize or recognize the true source of their excitement.
In terms of dissatisfaction, I would approach that much the same way, but in reverse. I would want to express to this individual, who is overly emotional, why I am dissatisfied. But, I again, would not want to offend them. They’re expecting me to be satisfied, but why? I should know why they want to satisfy me, if not, I should ask.
My method for most of the situations that I experience like this is to use leading questions. I want to lead people to an answer. I want to draw a conclusion on my own with what I know of the person and who I know that they are.
With that in mind, I expect that I should already have a good awareness of what makes someone express a certain emotion. If I am dissatisfied and don’t want to offend the person with me but would rather relieve them, I would lead them to tell me what satisfies me. By leading them this way, they will see that while their intentions were on target, their execution, or method, could have been better for my satisfaction, the key in my experience is to be entirely certain that they are receiving my intended message.
I wanted to make this piece very specific and applicable but I’m having trouble doing that. One of the things that I can say though, is that the platinum rule is ultimately important. I know how I want to be treated but by treating someone who is overly emotional as I would like to be treated, they might be offended or even disrespected. I prefer to practice the platinum rule as much as possible.
What I think about most is how someone will react. The most important thing, which I want to go into more detail in another piece, is the 7–38–55 rule which says that 7% of communication is verbal, 38% is inflection or tone of voice, and 55% is body language
You can tell someone you are dissatisfied in a lot of different ways. If you tell someone you are dissatisfied as your arms are crossed, your face is low, and your voice mumbles… that might be received by the other person as you feel hopeless and that you will remain dissatisfied. In response, as this individual is overly emotional, they will likely be offended and upset as a result believing they have no way to satisfy you in this situation.
Consider if you were to start with a smile and a loose posture, and then state that you felt dissatisfied. The other individual will likely receive this communication as though you are open to other options and becoming satisfied overall.
As a whole, what matters most in my eyes, is tailoring your communication to the other person and being open and honest and kind.
“One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything — and one’s last is to come to terms with everything” — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg