Riddle: What addictive habit is bad for your health, wastes your time, and is costly to your business?
Answer: Negativity.
Here’s some interesting research.
Habit
Negativity is a habit. We think over 60,000 thoughts per day and 85% of those thoughts are either negative or repetitive.
Health
According to The Journal for the Advancement of Medicine, even a five minute episode of recalling an angry experience can suppress the immune system for up to six hours.
Time Waster
If two employees who make $20 an hour complain for one hour per week, an average of 12 minutes per day per person, that averages out to $2,000 per year due to complaining. Think about what happens when five or six others join in.
Costly
Studies show absenteeism is related to workplace negativity. Gallup reports that negativity cost the US economy $3 billion in lost productivity last year.
Negativity shows up in various forms – gossip, finger pointing, and bickering just to name a few manifestations. Not to mention the habit most of us have without realizing it – complaining.
Complaining is a difficult habit to break, after all venting feels good. The bad news, and part of what makes complaining an addiction, is this: Every time you vent, you grow a new brain cell for the purpose of venting. The brain changes as a result of where you put your attention.
I want to give you the answer to break the complaining addiction: Learn how to ask for what you want. That’s right. No complaints, no excuses, and no regrets – just ask.
The method I teach is called “turning negative into positive.”
It’s easy.
Catch yourself the moment you say, “I don’t want…” Stop yourself right there. This is step one. Now that you know what you don’t want, you don’t need to waste any more time talking about it. Turn that statement into a positive request. In other words, what is the opposite of what you don’t want? Then all you have to do is reframe your statement. You have just saved thirty minutes of story-telling, and now you aren’t boring everyone around you as you rant and rave about what isn’t working. In fact, there’s a good chance you will get what you want if you can name what it is instead of going off on a tangent.
Here’s the formula in a 1-2-3 format.
1. Know what you don’t want.
2. Reframe what you don’t want into what you do want.
3. Ask for what you want.
Example: You are getting ready to have a discussion with a co-worker and you have a feeling it might turn into an argument. It is tempting to say, “I don’t want to argue.”
1. Know what you don’t want: (I don’t want to argue.)
2. Reframe what you do want. (I want us to come to an agreement.)
3. Now, ask for what you want, “I have something a bit sensitive to talk to you about and what I really want is for us to come to an agreement.”
Besides setting the stage for problem solving, you have started to break a habit that is bad for your health, wastes your time, bores others, and costs your company lots of money.
Marlene Chism is a professional speaker and the author of “Stop Workplace Drama” (Wiley 2011). Marlene has a master’s degree in HR Development from Webster University. To get a copy of “Stop Workplace Drama,” go to www.stopworkplacedrama.com.
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