heal or harm?…

this is an important verse in this matter of building confidence in others.  ephesians 4.29 (tev), don’t use harmful words.  use only helpful words, the kind that build up. 

with our words we can either heal people or we can harm people.  we can build them up or tear them down.  we can destroy them or make their day. 

you may use put downs to motivate other people, maybe at the office, at school, on the playing field as a coach, maybe as a parent.  you can use put downs to motivate (to an extent) but it plants seeds of rebellion. 

there was a study that was done in a book by david seamans on affirmation.  they’ve come up with a formula.  positive strokes enhances, negative strokes hurt us, diminish us.  they’ve added a point value to strokes. 

if you give a positive stroke for doing something good, that is one point.  if you give a positive stroke for being – when you compliment somebody for what they are, not what they do – that’s ten points.  it’s much more important to compliment people for what they are rather than what they do.  ten times the value. 

on the negative, when you criticize somebody for something they’ve done wrong, or you put them down, that’s a negative ten – for doing something wrong.  but when you criticize someone for something they are – “why can’t you be like...” or “what are you like...” – that’s a negative 100 points.  that’s the value.

proof:  why is it that you can remember in your lifetime, hurtful criticisms that were made about you in years past while forgetting hundreds of compliments?  we remember the criticisms, we forget the compliments.

we need to learn to criticize without condemning. 

so what method of correction do you use the most?  do you use sarcasm, comparisons, put downs or do you point out error without putting the person down. 

just a thought from the front porch…