KEEP TAKING RISKS, by all means. Stand and deliver a toast at the next wedding you attend if you feel moved to do so. But don’t take the risk of drowning your nerves by getting good and drunk before you give the toast. Here are some risks in communication not worth taking:
Don’t risk your sanity by engaging with manipulative or unethical people. You may find yourself in a relationship with a duplicitous individual who doesn’t deserve compromise, accommodation, or collaboration. As British author Elizabeth David wrote, “There are people who take the heart out of you, and there are people who put it back.” It feels awful when you put in good-faith effort and another person withholds it. Remove yourself (avoid) or set rules (compete) if you have to communicate with someone who reveals themself to be damaging to your health
or spirit.
Don’t risk setting unachievably high standards. Sometimes our ambition can get in the way of showing ourselves grace when results are less than ideal. Think “I need to practice,” not “I need perfection.”
If you have high expectations, I salute your pursuit of excellence. The downside is we make life harder as we struggle to accept that we mess up sometimes. No book, coach, class, person, nothing is going to polish your communication as well as the old-fashioned method of try, fail at some part of the interaction, and try again—maybe even with the same person the very next day. That’s actually a pretty fair descriptor of the dynamics in most committed relationships, isn’t it?
You keep showing up, as do they.
Letting others define you leaves you holding the short end of the stick in interactions. Give yourself a hand up instead. Figure out what success means to you, then live toward it as much as possible. I’m not sure why so many people have time to be critical of you when they could be working on themselves. Maybe it’s just easier to rate others rather than looking at our own challenges.
Staying away from constructive or negative feedback limits growth. Constructive feedback is delivered gracefully with positives included like a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Negative feedback happens when the sender doesn’t bother with balance and just lays what you didn’t do well on the line. Either way, seeking a kernel of truth you can admit to and work on
leaves you stronger for having heard it. Don’t risk losing the learning.
Staying in a negative, adverse employment situation for too long can be damaging to your health. If your attempts to improve the culture don’t yield movement toward wellness, take steps to get out of there before you succumb to burnout. Polish your job search tools, line up references, research job openings, and begin to confide in trustworthy people that you’re open to other employment. I’ve seen these self-advocating acts drastically reduce stress even as people continue to work where they’d rather not.
Communicating when you’re too angry to see clearly is not a Pro Move. You have much more to lose than gain. Better to vent on paper and then watch it burn rather than draft an email and hit “send.” This reminds me of something comedy legend Carol Burnett said—that “words, when printed, have a life of their own.”
Trying to be funny when you might instead be insulting is not a risk worth taking. Negativity and criticism resonate longer with message recipients than praise likely ever will. The most commonly uttered words of defense for workplace harassment are, “I was just joking.” It’s worth a second thought if that overused statement is in your repertoire.
“Watch it, buddy.” Don’t get yourself into a fisticuffs situation standing up to a bully just because you have a goal to take more risks after reading this book. It’s interesting to watch coaching clients who usually hang back start to take risks to build their directness. Many people turn their risk dial from 2 to 10 instead of from 2 to 3. Baby steps work best. That’s how it is when we get a new tool in our hands. We need to gauge where, when, and how to use the tool, including risk-taking.
I remember the first eye shadow I ever purchased by myself with babysitting money. It was my favorite color and still is - bright turquoise blue. I wore it to ballet class, from lid to brow, really painted on.
My older, wiser neighbor gal pal gave me a ride to class, and looked at my face. “Did you get some new eye shadow?” she asked. Talk about a diplomatic communicator. Don’t overdo.
Assuming people know how you feel about them. Muster up your courage to share gratitude for what makes standout people in your life uniquely special. Time waits for no one, and all the money in the world can’t buy you one more day with your favorite people when they move on. This applies to our animals, too. The four fur babies I’ve had to bid goodbye? Those pups heard many dozens of times per week how smart, needed, appreciated, and stunningly beautiful they were. If only we spoke as generously to our humans as we do our pets, they’d really feel seen.
Not keeping confidential communication confidential limits others’ ability to trust you with sensitive information. Like complaining, leaking a secret has a certain natural high to it, until the thrill is gone and you’re left with negative impact on your reputation as a communicator.
CHAPTER 8 Pro Move
Exercise restraint when a risk’s cons outweigh its potential pros. Don’t be so eager to show off your courage that you fail to calculate the possible cost of your communication goals.
CHAPTER 8 Exercise
Evaluate your modus operandi as a communicator. Where might you need to rein in some risk? It could be in the way you address someone by first name instead of using the honorific (Doctor, Captain, Coach) before you have their permission. It could be as simple as not risking your assumption is understood by all: “I’ll risk not answering this email. They already know I care.” And maybe we do, but we still might appreciate a response.
