Affirmations and Agreements

Photo by: Eugene Zemlyanskiy

AFFIRMATIONS and AGREEMENTS

We’ve been working with some clients recently, doing an exercise we’ve called, “Affirmations and Agreements.”

It’s all too easy to tear one another down, to gossip, and to even use locker-room humor to speak, in one author’s words, slant. It’s much more difficult to look your teammate in the eye and speak THE TRUTH. But, it’s oh so worth it! The first part of this exercise is to

use your words to affirm your teammates.

Why not use your words to build each other up? Make affirmations a part of your culture.

Tell your teammates

what you know to be true about them.

 Be done with the lies we so often tell ourselves. Practice affirming one another regularly. You’ll be glad you did!

The second part of the exercise is to discover where you agree. Disagreement is much easier than agreement in the short run. But, left to its own devices, where does disagreement lead us? It leads to separation and loss of relationship. And these things in turn lead to lower productivity, loss of momentum and loss of motivation.

We can all find areas of agreement

if we “mine” for them.

 I think we’d all agree we could stand to practice this in our society. We could all benefit from a healthy dose of civil dialogue.

Once you’ve discovered places you agree, memorialize them. Write them down. Call them to mind often. This will lead to connection and the kinds of relationships you want. Focusing on agreements will increase productivity, momentum and motivation. Look, it’s no secret. We will disagree and sometimes disagree vehemently.

Can we, when we disagree,

agree to disagree without being disagreeable?

 When we’ve done this exercise with clients, the mood changes. People begin to pull together in new and fresh ways. A by-product has been to go deeper into conversation and ideas than we’ve gone before. It’s as if another layer of the onion has gotten peeled.

Don’t let your fears keep you from practicing affirmations and agreements. Fear can too often be a powerful motivator that robs us from what we really desire. Fear can cause us to settle for “getting along” when

what we really want is to dig deeper

and to go further TOGETHER.

 If you haven’t tried this exercise, let me encourage you to try it. OR, if you prefer, let me know and we’ll put it on our next agenda. I’m confident, either way, you’ll be glad you did!