“I” statements for better collaborating/social skills
I think the concept of collaborating and improving social skills with assertive/mindful communication is so important because ones language matters. It has a huge impact on ones relationships.
I really like the idea of “I” statements to help change out accusing language for assertive language.
I recently changed “can you stop being so annoyingly loud” to “I have a hard time concentrating when there’s loud noises”. It felt a lot less combative and felt like it was better received.
Has anyone else tried using “I” statements to help change out accusing language for assertive language? How did it work out for you?
@Frankie111
Updated to make response longer:
I think the concept of collaborating and improving social skills with assertive and mindful communication is so important because one’s language really does matters. One’s language has a huge impact on one’s relationships, either positive or negative.
I really like the idea of “I” statements to help change out accusing language for assertive language.
I recently tried “can you stop being so annoyingly loud” to “I have a hard time concentrating when there’s loud noises”. It felt a lot less combative and I felt like it was better received too.
Next time I’m going to try to go further with my “I” statements. I’m going to identify how I “feel” and use words to describe my emotion. Then I’m going to identify “when” I feel that way i.e. identify the behaviour that disturbed me. Then I’m going to explain my “because” i.e. why the action affected me. Lastly, I’ll be specific about what “I need” from the other person or what I would like to happen next time. I think this will improve my communication further.
Has anyone else tried using “I” statements to help change out accusing language for assertive language? If so, how did it work out for you?
@Frankie111 Thank you for your post. I’ve found using “I” statements presents your perception without placing blame on the other person.
As you said, it changes out the accusing language for assertive. I have used “I” statements, and found that after expressing my own thoughts and experiences, it improved communication, deescalated the situation and created a stronger relationship.
It seemed to have such positive effects as the other person understood where I can from.
@Frankie111
Has anyone else tried using “I” statements to help change out accusing language for assertive language? If so, how did it work out for you?
Great post! I've actually thought about this a lot growing up after hearing about it once from a TV show that is now long gone in my memory. I've been applying this tactic for all my personal relationships and I find that it really de-escalates a lot of situations. It allows us to understand better what emotions the other person is feeling and you can relay your thoughts and emotions to others without sounding accusatory.
For example, an ex of mine and I used to get into arguments and mainly it's because we had difficulties understanding why the other person was upset. For example, I used to get upset that my ex would blow off our call for a party but I had difficulties expressing to him why I was upset. Once I learned this technique, I started to tell him "I feel unimportant when we don't do our calls" and my ex replied in a similar style. We were then able to talk out what we felt and resolve our conflicts.
