Communicate What You Want
Our mind works in such a way that it doesn’t recognise commands such as Don’t, or Do Not. When you tell someone not to do something, the image that appears in the person’s mind will be exactly the stuff that he or she isn’t suppose to do.
A few days back, I was waiting at the train station and I saw a mum trying to get her kids to stop shouting and running about. She went, “Don’t make so much noise!” As expected, the kids kinda ignored her and went on enjoying themselves.
You see, when you tell someone not to make so much noise, the message that gets registered in their heads will be making noise, rather than keeping quiet. To get someone to keep quiet, a more effective message would be simply, “Keep quiet!”.
Of course, you might argue that since they are kids, whatever you say probably won’t make a difference. Even if this is true, the mum will still stand a better chance by asking them to keep quiet instead of asking them not to make noise. This applies to many things in life. If you want someone to be punctual, you tell them to “be early” instead of “don’t be late”.
So the next time you’re about to tell somebody not to do something, stop for a moment and think about what you want instead. Then rephrase and communicate what you want, and you’ll probably end up having more successes.
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