A Challenge For The New Year

The challenge is: Make people feel good about themselves.

I know this woman, who, every time she calls, asks how I am doing. And if I say “terrific” which I say most of the time, she feels compelled to bring me down. Usually through criticism that she says is for “self-improvement”. The telling thing here is that this woman works as an HR Director. I don’t take her phone calls anymore.

If we spent our time making people feel good about themselves, most of the conflict that we have would just disappear. Psychologically, mean people are just trying to feel better about themselves. So If we made it out mission to make people feel good about themselves, people would be a whole lot nicer. So, here’s how you do it:

“ask them about a specific aspect of their life where they are doing well, and follow it up with a generic question about their overall happiness. It sounds simplistic, but it works wonders, according to Nobel laureate psychologist Daniel Kahneman.”

Via LifeHacker. Photo by Kirsty Hall.