Think of a request that you would like to make of your partner.
Practice with communication
Brainstorming effective talking points will help us have better experiences sharing our needs with our partners.
This is the first Workbench Exercise of our Building Relationship Skills Course.[1] This space is meant for you to reflect and write out your thoughts, which you can optionally save to your device or print. Note that nothing you write below gets saved by our site.
These workbench exercises will help you to slow down and more fully examine the way you communicate with your partner. Learning about relationships is one thing, but here is where the real work begins.
Positive Communication Worksheet
Step 1
Step 2
Reflect on your request and how you would typically approach it, and then how you would approach it based on the elements of open, honest, direct, and respectful communication as discussed above.
The space below if for practicing rewording your request in a more positive way.
Be Positive: This means saying what we want, rather than what we don’t want.
Be Brief: Try to only make one request at a time.
Be Specific: Our partners can’t read our minds!
Label Feelings: Try to describe how our partner’s actions or inactions are affecting us.
Offer an Understanding Statement: We do this by trying to appreciate the issue from their perspective.
Take Partial Responsibility: Conceding a little goes a long way.
Offer Help: See if there is anything you can do to help your partner achieve your request
Your Workbench Exercise notes will be helpful as we move through the course, and can also serve as something to reflect back on in the future.
PS: We’ll be doing more Workbench Exercises throughout the course, so it may be helpful to save all your notes in one place (like a note app on your phone, or one place for your printed copies).
References:
- The 7 elements of positive communication. The 20 Minute Guide. (2019, January 30). https://the20minuteguide.com/partners/helping-with-words/positive-communication/