Two questions to help negative people be grateful
One of the most frequently asked questions I get is, “How do you make negative people grateful ?”
Well first off, I can’t make anyone grateful and that’s never my objective so I’d discourage you from trying to force anyone to be grateful. But I can ask a question or two that might get someone thinking and shift their perspective which just might cause them to feel grateful. And when it works, they made themselves feel grateful, not me, I just asked the question.
Here’s a quick story…
We’re celebrating our son’s birthday (he was 5 or 6 years old at the time) and it’s after dinner. The grown ups are sitting around the living room and our son, Nick is in the middle of the room opening presents. He plays with the new toy for a few minutes and then he's on to the next unopened present. A surprised look crosses his face after he open’s a present from my sister. Then he looks down, sighs, and his body collapses from his sitting position into a sweater, neatly folded in the box.
While our son is not a negative person, I could see he was not particularly grateful for his new sweater. So out comes the question.
“Nick, why do you think Jan got that sweater for you ?”
There’s a few seconds of silence.
“Because she loves me.”
“Bam—you got it buddy !”
And this is the question you can ask anyone who is being negative or not being grateful—obviously, don't mention the sweater and customize the question to the other people involved in the situation. Another question you can ask about other people involved in their situation is, “What do you think it cost Beth-Anne (or whomever) to do what she did ?”
These two questions help the “negative” person get a clearer understanding of other people’s motivations and the sacrifices other people have made—for them. There’s no guarantee it works every time but give it a try—you might even try it on yourself when you find yourself in a negative tailspin.
What questions do you ask to help people reframe from negative to positive ?
