“Individuals, teams and organisations move in the direction that they study … what is given attention grows.”

David Cooperrider

Practice a More Positive Vocabulary with Self & Others

Ø  Keep a journal in which you practice positive language through creative writing.  Spend 5 minutes a day writing about anything (make it up if you like!).  Then, go through what you have written and highlight positive words and phrases – congratulate yourself!  Look for negative words and reframe these into a more positive context.

Ø  Review everything you write.  Written communications are the simplest place to start building a core positive vocabulary because you can review and edit before you send. 

Ø  Monitor your speech.  Catch yourself using positive words – congratulate yourself!  Catch yourself using negative words, stop yourself (in mid sentence if you need to) and reframe your words into positive statements.

Ø  Think before you speak.  It sounds easy but it's actually rather difficult to put into practice.  It's perfectly acceptable to pause when it's your turn in a conversation and give yourself a moment to organise, prepare, and present your thoughts in a positive way.



Ø  Don't try to eliminate negative words from your vocabulary completely.  While working positive language into your thinking, speaking, and writing is healthy, avoiding or ignoring the negative can be a form of denial.  Acknowledge the situation or problem but flip it to what you want to achieve; to what is desired.

Ø  Practice active and constructive responding (rather than passive and constructive, or active and destructive, or passive and destructive responding).

Ø  Develop and ask positive, generative questions.  The power of questions and questioning is to open the door to new possibilities.

Adapted from the works of M Seligman, D Cooperrider, B Fredrickson, G Bushe & D Whitney; and from guest writer Melissa Donovan at www.positivelypresent.com