Mindset Monday - Drop The “Yeah, But…”

This week’s Mindset Monday Challenge is aimed at improving your communication, and it involves dropping “yeah, but” from your speech.

Therapists like to say everything before the but is BS. When we say “yeah, but” we’ve really dismissed the other persons point of view, and are more interested in being heard and getting our point across. At the very extreme it shows that we might not have even been listening all that much.

When we hear “yeah, but” do we feel listened to, respected and understood? My guess is no. We feel like we’re in an argument of opinions, and it’s an adversarial style of discourse.

You might be thinking “yeah, but I really need to get my point across!” To that I’ll ask if you think your point will be more or less received without that phrase?

So what’s the alternative? To repeat back to the other person what you heard them say, to make sure you understood them. You can either parrot or paraphrase. There’s more to it, so start with that and let me know how your conversations go this week.

If you’d like to talk more about cooperative communication, just reach out.

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