What does your 'win' look like?

This great article showed up in my Facebook newsfeed earlier this week:  3 Tips for Creating Clear Communication

As I have thought of them over the last few days I have realized how great they are.  The information is set within the context of communication with a church, but thinking of them in the context of marriage. Parenting. Changing habits. Wowza!  Good stuff to think about if I do say so myself!

# 1 - What are you trying to accomplish? What would the 'win' be?

So often I look back on a day that has been filled with all of the craziness that is my life and wonder what I really accomplished.  If I viewed it from the viewpoint of these two easy questions I might not be so filled with doubt.

Thinking back to Thursday I had one thing that I wanted to accomplish. 

Did I get it done?  Yes!

Did I accomplish my 'win'?  Yes!

Did a whole crap ton of crazy happen in the process?  Youbetcha...  :)


# 2 - What is the context? What else happening that could affect this?

What are the crazy things that are happening right now?  For our family, one of the things that I would like to see happen is a date night with my husband.  However, he is working very long hours and is dealing with some huge seasonal allergies.  He might want to spend time with me as well, but the bigger things in his life right now are getting enough sleep to function at work and trying to get some relief from allergies.  Demanding a date night isn't going to result in a 'win' for anyone!


# 3 - Who is our audience? What do they know or need to understand?

Thinking about this in the perspective of small children, if my 'win' for the day would be a clean house - have I communicated that to my kids?  Do they know what we are working on?  Are they capable of doing the what I am expecting them to do?  Am I working against myself by not communicating with them?  Or am I simply expecting too much from them?  Because after all, they ARE kids and there job is to learn by playing.  :)


Viewing tasks through these questions helped me Thursday to turn my thinking around from failure to victory.  And who wouldn't like to view life from that of victory?!

Comments

Popular Posts