6 Ways to Create Conditions that will Help You Better Serve Others
In my counseling profession, I have encountered countless people who were in a mental or emotional crisis. I will touch on the crisis but everything I’d like to address here applies to all situations. I have learned that it is vital to keep your thinking, behaviors, and emotions in check regardless of the social scenario you find yourself. This is specifically relevant to those in the helping profession but also to any who are seeking to improve their effective communication. By acknowledging and considering your thinking, you are less likely to harm those whom you are seeking to help.
It is important to consider that the potential to cause harm may start way before we enter a situation. We all have attitudes, values, and beliefs within ourselves whether we are aware or not. Some people tend to dwell on the critical characteristics and traits of a person rather than the good. Others can connect effortlessly with a person and be blinded to their flaws. There are people in our lives that know how to stir up the conflict to the point that we don’t want to even be around them and those that we may see through rose-colored glasses. Each one of us has the power to create conditions that level the playing field and also facilitate the most helpful environment.
Others bring their conditions too. Some people know of us without ever meeting us and people are often quick to make a judgment. We may have even engaged in behaviors years ago that wasn’t appropriate, and people may hang on to that. So as an example, based on that behavior (condition) years ago we may still be judged and that is okay. It’s up to us now to take the moral high road if we want to become the best version of ourselves.
Let’s imagine you walk into a room where there is a crisis or other type of situation that may contain some type of conflict. The person in the situation sees you walk in, and you have created an unfortunate poor condition in your past and this person knows it (and may take full advantage of it). The person in the situation/crisis begins to judge you. You are going to have to work harder to build that relationship back up if you are trying to serve this person and want to become the best version of yourself.
Now take this a step deeper. Consider it your responsibility to rekindle this relationship even if the other person had a part in it. As you cannot control the other person’s thinking or behavior, the best way to manage the situation is by controlling the one thing you do have control over, and that is you. Becoming the best version of you means you won’t let them push your buttons and you won’t push back. By doing so, you are molding yourself into the best possible version of yourself at that moment and also creating conditions that support healthy outcomes for both parties.
The whole concept of creating conditions is about building healthy relationships with those around us, family, friends, clients, employees, associates, and so on. It’s about doing everything you can in the current moment to be responsible and make good decisions. The following are 6 ways to create conditions that will help you better serve others and in turn help you have more meaningful relationships.
1 You Must Use Mindfulness
We all get stuck in our thinking, behaviors, and ways. Mindfulness helps us to break out of those thinking and behavioral patterns and recognize if they are helpful or harmful. When we are being mindful, we are challenging what we think is “real”. We are considering the possibility that we are wrong. Mindfulness is the ability to think deeply about situations and then take action based on all the information you have gathered. If you are practicing mindfulness when you act it will ensure the least amount of harm possible or at least less harm. Creating conditions and mindfulness go hand in hand. Creating helpful conditions and presenting ourselves as a helpful person takes a good deal of self-reflection. Not only reflection about how we are seeing the world but how others are seeing us.
2 It’s Necessary to Seek Clarity
Serving others is hard work and it’s even harder when others lack trust or have judgment about you because of something you did in the past. Creating conditions is important when we consider connecting with people on multiple different levels. It’s important to have a characteristic of seeking information before you jump to a conclusion or draw an incomplete conclusion. To serve others you must connect with people on a more profound level.
How a person gains deeper understanding is by seeking clarity. If we had all the answers, we wouldn’t have to do this, but can you imagine a world in which everyone believes they have all the answers? It’s a scary thought and not too far off from our current predicament as a society, but what I am suggesting is that you have the power within yourself to stand apart. We must seek clarity to reduce harm and as a result, we will have longer-lasting and more meaningful relationships through this service.
3 It’s Vital to Instill or Kindle Hope in Others
We all probably have heard the glass half empty/half full analogy. When we are creating conditions, typically we get better results looking at the glass half full (more optimistic). It doesn’t stop just there. On a really deep level, we have an obligation to other people to create opportunities to help them be more successful. Not giving those around us all the answers but guiding them to better results for themselves. Let’s face it we don’t have all the answers in our own lives. We just need those around us to give us hope and cheer us on.
We have a moral responsibility to others to kindle hope. Keep adding little pieces of information in a caring and humble way to get them to the next place, no matter how large or small the step. If we are being the best version of ourselves instilling hope in others is an extremely vital part of that process. I encourage you to practice it; the personal rewards are incredible.
4 It’s Essential to Use Every Tool That You Have at Your Disposal
Sometimes in situations, we don’t have all the answers but that should never stop us from committing ourselves to figuring out what works.
I remember an excellent leader of a company I once worked for. This supervisor was the essence of a servant leader. I remember him asking questions when someone left the company (whether on a good note or not-so-good note) “How could we have served them better? What else could we have done with them to make them more successful? These are deep questions if you think about them. A lot of us tend to lose patience with those people that we find particularly challenging. We tend to dismiss them because of some type of behavior that challenges our views. We may think to ourselves “well they did it to themselves”. You can’t learn much about them or yourself with that type of thinking.
To become the best version of yourself, you have to ask hard questions. The questions that challenge your thinking. We have to try a variety of strategies that may even be outside our comfort zone. If one thing doesn’t work, we must try something else and if that doesn’t work then we try something else. Ask advice from trusted advisors and dig deep for solutions. We don’t give up on the people we are serving and especially on ourselves.
5 It’s Okay to Make Mistakes…Own Them and Fix Them
Making mistakes is an everyday thing. Working with people our mistakes tend to highlight or have more impact than the good we do. I believe everything in our life is a learning experience. Often not everyone believes this. To be the best version of ourselves we must have a shift in our thinking. We must look through the lens that we can learn from anything that happens to us. If we can adopt this thinking the emotional response is much easier to control.
When we don’t admit to our mistakes once we see them, the alternative is we begin to create conditions of lying to ourselves. It’s vital once we see our errors, we do what it takes to make them right. This might sound easy, but it takes a good deal of thinking deeply self-critically. Remember the goal is to serve others and become the best version of us. Sometimes the best version of us is as simple as admitting to our mistakes and then fixing them.
6 It’s About Your Delivery
We must have tactful interventions with those around us. Our behaviors need to be purposeful. It’s really important to read the situation and the people involved. We need to make sure our minds are right when we approach a situation. Never meet resistance with resistance. Moreover, we need to role with any conflict that arises during conversation and communication. We need to be transparent.
Sometimes words hurt but it’s also possible to allow those words to go through us and out the other side. Keep in mind creating conditions is about not doing any harm to those around us even though others may harm us. Again, becoming the best version of us is about taking the morally high road. We should approach situations with polish, competence, care, concern, and balance just to name a few. Again read the situations know who you are talking with and be willing to change it up if something isn’t working.
Conclusion
Creating conditions is important in so many ways when we are trying to improve ourselves. Serving others and becoming the best version of ourselves is what life is about. All of us have gifts we can offer the world, but we should not just settle we should always be improving. We should always be challenging our views by being mindful. We should always seek the clarity we need to get better results. Kindling hope in others is vital to our success in being a better person. We all make mistakes that we need to fix, and our delivery is a condition that keeps those around us feeling safe. Becoming the best version of us is hard work but it becomes easier once we understand that we create conditions around us that hurt or help others.
If you like what you have read, check out other articles on the website ThinkingDeeplySelf-Critically.com the site is designed to give us tools and techniques to help us become the best version of ourselves. There are four main categories on the site. The Foundation, Our Responsibility to Us, Our Responsibility to Others and Facilitating Crisis. We can also be found on Pinterest.
