(This is Part 3 of a series. Go back to Part 2.)
The experiences cited above summarize thousands of scientific studies which demonstrate quite conclusively that a positive approach which finds the rightness in people works overwhelmingly better than one that mostly complains about or criticizes what we don't like.
The late psychologist Donald Clifton came up with an interesting metaphor for what is now known as Positive Psychology. He said to imagine each person as having a bucket. We can either dip from that bucket or help to fill it by offering negative or positive comments to them.
When we sincerely praise someone in specific ways for something we're filling up their bucket. When we offer critical or negative comments—unless they take place in an overall positive context—we're dipping from their bucket and helping to empty it.
Naturally, people tend to respond positively to those people who are filling their bucket—and tend to withdraw or become hostile around people who are emptying it.
Just look at your own experience. When people say positive, supportive things to you, when they help to fill your bucket, don't you open up and become more alive and loving? Conversely, when someone is mostly critical of you don't you have a tendency to withdraw or become hostile? We all do; it's human to do so.
If we want to grow in terms of bringing more joy and fulfillment to this world, we can begin that process by asking ourselves in each interaction with another:
Am I filling or dipping from this person's bucket?
We may be surprised when we begin asking this question of ourselves to find that we're more critical than we were aware of. If so, we can ask ourselves how we can help to fill that person's bucket. How can we begin the positive cycle by being more positive and affirming to this person?
Something that can be very helpful in this regard is to:
Make a list of ten things that you can appreciate about this person.
This can be particularly useful when we're having a difficult relationship. In such a situation, where we're experiencing stress or iriitation about a partner, a friend, a co-worker, a child—or anyone where a relationship has deteriorated—making such a list can just work miracles.
Once we've made our list, we just review it two or three times each day, and particularly before we're going to see or talk to that person. It's just amazing what this can accomplish. The whole relationship seems to be lifted up.
As an example, let's say we're experiencing a problem with a co-worker. We tend to criticise them in our mind, asking why they can't be different or behave better, etc. We tend to "make a case" against the person by compiling their bad traits in our mind.
This "case" that we've built then tends to express itself in our attitude towards and our conversation with and about that person, with predictable results that spiral downwards.
(This is the end of Part 3. Go to Part 4.)
—jim sloman, 8.25.04 for Mar 16
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