I don’t know if some people realize how negative they are; I guess they just don’t hear their words, at least not the way that other people hear them. A woman I know comes across as a very negative, overly worried person. I don’t think she’s really that negative, but she comes across that way, and I think it causes a lot of problems for her.
Some people write in a journal every night, and one of their tasks is to write all of the bad things they said during that day. It may harm our relationship, but I think I’m going to suggest that to her the next time I see her. Then maybe she’ll hear what she says.
I’m very conscious of this topic because my father could be very negative at times, and that had a big influence on me. I loved the man, but I didn’t want to have that part of his personality, so I listened to a lot of people like Leo Buscaglia and Zig Ziglar in an effort to not end up that way. As I wrote in my book, A Survival Guide for New Consultants