Reframing - The Switching of Perspective

This is one cool article by Bo Bennett on using positive words...

Being a dad, I have taught my kids many things since their birth, and they have taught me a great many things as well. When my two-year-old son would play with his toys, I found myself saying proactively, and in a warning tone, "Don't throw your toys," only to realize that I just put an idea in his little head that was most likely not there seconds ago.Sure enough, seconds later, toys would be flying across the room. I now say, "Play nicely with your toys please," and get much better results.

This same concept is a well-known phenomenon of human behavior thatapplies to people of all ages. Phrasing requests by using words suchas, "don't", "not", "stop", "refrain from", and other negative words or phrases require that the request be processed by the conscious mind. Therefore, if we make a request using a word or phrase in the negative, and the person to whom we make the request is not actively listening, or incapable of understanding the complete request, the request is passed directly to the person's subconscious mind without the negative term. So for example, saying, "Don't stick the pencil up your nose!" to a daydreaming student enforces this action by entering his subconscious as"stick the pencil up your nose". Even if the request does pass through the conscious mind, it still enters the subconscious without the negative word or phrase. This is because the subconscious stores images and feelings, not words. The word "not" or "don't" cannot be visualized and therefore is omitted.

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Which brings to my mind the subject of reframing which I learned in NLP course... Switch a negative subject into a positive one through the use of words... It's all a matter of perspective.. cos most people see the negative side of things, yet if i can get them to see the positive side of a situation, wont that be benefical to them? They will complain less and i get peace of mind.. hehehe:P

This morning, my training manager made a remark that he is overloaded with so much work preparing for the company sales conference, and said something like "all those things that people don't do one they throw at me"... Well, I just say that it only means he is good and capable of doing these tasks and that's why he is given the role of managing a big sales conference event.. on hearing this, his face lit up and said to me, "yah ha.. that's a good way of saying it, u sure know how to talk haha"

That's the power of reframing! Cool eh.. gotta practice more...!