Interpersonal Expertise Tip: Create and Maintain a Supportive Environment
February 8th, 2010
Many experts believe that consistently supportive relationships (both personal and professional) is the “soil” out of which true effectiveness and satisfaction grows. In today’s often disconnected society, it has become increasingly difficult for many to maintain safe and healthy relationships. The good news is that it is possible to overcome these relationship barriers by creating a positive and nurturing environment. A critical step toward enhanced Interpersonal Expertise is the cultivation and maintenance of a such an environment. Supportive relationships help everyone involved to lay a foundation for more satisfaction and effectiveness in all areas of life.
Supportive environments can be created by first becoming “self-supportive,” then gaining an understanding of how to spread that support to the important others in our lives. Here are some ways people have been able to create supportive environments:
- Making an effort to talk to oneself in supportive ways. Many of us can be quite harsh on ourselves when we make a mistake or do not act in ways that we would like to. Thoughts like “I am so stupid,” or “what I just did must have looked so weird” can take a toll (consciously or subconsciously) on how supportive we feel toward ourselves. Many have found it helpful to make an effort to be more supportive toward themselves (with thoughts like “I made a mistake, like everyone does from time to time,” or “I acted unusually out of discomfort – that’s not weird at all, even if others see it that way.”). Becoming more supportive of ourselves sets the stage for spreading support throughout our environments.
- Becoming clearer about what helps others to feel supported. Like beauty, support is in the eye of the beholder. To spread support to others, it is important that we are clear about what helps others feel supported. Some of us like compliments, others feel supported when we follow through with our commitments to them and still others feel supported by sincere apologies when we make a mistake in the relationship. It can be very helpful to talk with important others about how we can help them feel supported. This allows us to spread support into our environments and make it the norm rather than the exception.
- Spending more time in supportive environments (and less time in unsupportive ones). Sometimes certain environments are “immune” to our attempts to spread support. For a variety of reasons, certain environments are not conducive to attempts to create more accepting tones. When our attempts to spread genuine support are continuously rejected, it can be helpful to find new environments and people who are more open to such attempts. Support is such a powerful influence in most people’s lives that going without it for too long can be very damaging to our personal and professional goals in life.
NOTE TO THOSE USING THE MISSION FULFILLMENT SYSTEM: You can move toward creating and/or maintaining more supportive environments by adding a new Objective to your system by using the “Add New Item” link (for example, “Create and maintain a supportive environment”). You can then develop a SMART Goal related to that new Objective by using the “Add Subitem” link to the far right of the new Objective (for example, “Spend at least 1-2 hours a day with people who help me feel supported or who accept my support for them.”).
FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT ON THE MISSION FULFILLMENT SYSTEM: Click here to for more information and click here to sign up.
FINAL NOTE: If you were linked to this article by a video or email, please return to that link and proceed with any other instructions that you deem helpful. For more Execution Excellence and Interpersonal Expertise tips and tools visit our site at: www.excellencetree.com
Article Filed under: Interpersonal Expertise Tips
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