The Shortcut To Knowing What You Want

There is a special kind of magic that happens when you know exactly what you want and why. Here is a shortcut!

Transcript

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Hey, let's talk about a hack for turning around challenging relationships. We all have them, there's somebody in your life that you feel like, you just have to continue to engage with and be around and function with. And it's a special kind of stressful. And you might be wondering, what can I do? Like, I've tried everything, what can I do, and this is an awesome, awesome hack to really turn those relationships around quickly. The first thing is to sit down and really think about what is my core required return from this engagement, this interaction? What is the absolute non negotiable winwin that I need to have here in place in order for this relationship to become functional and healthy for everyone involved. And this is just a matter of getting clarity on your intentions, right? drilling it all down to the bare core, or the bare minimum. And being absolutely certain what is important to you, what you feel is fair to everyone involved, and therefore you approach everything differently with this in mind. So let's look at two examples. One a relationship example and one a co worker example, because these are the two places in life that I hear off about most frequently, right, and I think everybody can relate to. And so the first one for me is a relationship example. And this is my co parenting relationship with my boys, dad, right? My ex husband, there's always tricky stuff. That's how it goes. But at some point, I did this myself, and I said, What is my core required return from this relationship, we are going to have an ongoing, lifelong relationship really. And I realized that what it was, was that we both needed to empower and support each other to be the best parents possible to our boys. Nobody can argue with that, or find fault with that, right? It's super simple. And it guides my choices every single step of the way, what to say how to react, where to draw boundaries, where to take the time to communicate where to let things slide, right, because I know what my core required return is. So to give a hypothetical relatable example, let's say they are not thrilled with a parenting choice that he makes, right. And they express this to me, and of course, I want to acknowledge witness, validate their feelings, their feelings are real. But whereas one might initially feel like, Oh, this was an opportunity for me to gain their favor, and you know, get a dig in and get one up on the other person know, my core required return is that we both support each other and being the best parents possible to our boys. So in addition to allowing my boys to vent, I might say, yes. And also, as you begin to discuss this, keep in mind, he's doing everything he does, because he loves you and to be the best parent that he is able to be in making his choices with that in mind. And then they say, oh, gosh, you're right. And I hadn't thought of that, you know. And in that hypothetical example, I have done what I set out to do, you know, met my core required return. And then on the flip side, again, hypothetical, because this has not happened. But if there was something where I needed to express a boundary or a need, I could do so from a place of grace and respect and compassion, because it's all about this mutually beneficial core required return. In short, another way of saying that, it just makes everything so much easier and peaceful and productive. And it's really awesome. If you break it down and look at it that way. And think about all the possible scenarios, you can really start to see quickly how functional and functional this core required return. intention setting practice is, it's amazing. So let's also look at a co worker example because I hear this a lot. And you got somebody who's just you know, you're always butting heads, they're getting under your skin, it makes life miserable, going to work being at work doing what you do. And so how can you use this in that situation? Again, I have an example a personal example. This is from many, many, many years ago, and I was working with a woman, we were helping students with something. And I began to get the impression that her objection to my ideas had more to do with interpersonal reasons, then validity of the ideas and of course, I was frustrated. That's me, you know, putting a very pleasant spin on it. I was frustrated. But I did take the time to sit down and think through this and think about pre rehearsing something I've talked about a lot. What I was going to say or do should this pop up again, which of course it did. And basically, I don't remember the exact word so I'm just paraphrasing here. I said something along the lines of is your objection with the merit of the idea and whether or not it would benefit the students? Or is it somehow related to me and the fact that I'm the one proposing it and you know, I said it may be if we could just take things and break them down based on their benefits, their merits their potential drawbacks, and look at things really objectively we can figure out which are good ideas. We should move forward with and which aren't. And I do recall her being somewhat dumbfounded in silence, which is always a good thing. But I'll tell you what, from that point forward, not at that exact meeting. But literally, it changed the whole entire dynamic of our relationship. And we actually got together, we got along fine. And we worked really nicely with each other. So is it always going to be that one magic moment, and just the right words are said, everything comes together beautifully, maybe, maybe not. Maybe it'll take some time. You know, we're creatures of habit, we got to like, settle back and reflect on things and get new habits and practices and work your ideas. But as I mentioned earlier, it really gives you a framework for just being respectful, being graceful, creating Win Win situations, but also having boundaries and communicating in a much more productive way. That's not, you know, accusation, and always the victim and the blame and all that kind of business. So, core required return. Obviously, I'm a huge fan. And I hope that you will experiment with this in your life and see what value it holds for you.