The Best Place to Practice Negotiation: On Yourself.
If you want to be a successful negotiator, you must practice, practice, practice.
And the best place to practice negotiating is on you. It may sound strange to think about our internal conversations as negotiations, but we are negotiating with ourselves all the time.
What are life hacks after all? They are ways to get around self-imposed obstacles in order to accomplish the things we want to accomplish in our lives.
You can read about negotiation, understand it intellectually, imagine yourself negotiating brilliantly but until you find yourself on a phone call with the storage company that incorrectly charged your credit card and refuses to refund you your money, you really haven’t been put to the test.
In order to prepare for these types of future negotiations, the best place to practice is in those moment-by-moment internal conversations we have within us. The ones between you and you.
Here is a simple framework to use when negotiating with yourself:
The heart of every negotiation begins with knowing your self-worth. I have the right to ask for what I want, even from myself.
Get clear.
Ask, “What do I want?” Clarify exactly what it is that you want. A better body, healthier habits, spend less money? If you are negotiating with others, the question is, “What do they want?” However, when you’re negotiating with yourself, the other side is you. Take spending money, for example. One side of you likes spending money freely, but one side of you wants to save more money for the future. So in this case, one would ask, “What does the side of me that likes spending money want?” “What do they get out of this?”
Hone-in on the roadblocks.
This requires that you take the blinders off. What are the behaviors that you are doing that are causing you to not have what you want? It’s hard to acknowledge the aspects of ourselves that we feel are shameful, incompetent, or unattractive. That’s why taking the blinders off also requires the next step.
Don’t judge yourself.
This is where we get tripped up. We judge ourselves and label ourselves, maybe even call ourselves names: lazy, stupid, undisciplined. Here is the big question you need to ask yourself after you take the blinders off: “Am I willing to forgive myself for not being the person I think I should be and am I willing to love myself for the person I am?” The goal here is to have compassion and empathy for the aspect of you that you would like to change.
“You need not yell at the one who is learning as best [s]he can. You support [her] in change, and in compassion.” —Beyond the Known: Realization. Paul Selig
Work in harmony.
In life, dancing together is one of the most beautiful expressions of working in harmony. So, why not invite yourself to dance? Imagine the two sides of yourself coming together and waltzing through life.
Decide who leads.
When you dance, there is always one person who takes the lead. Make the decision that the aspect of self that is going to take the lead on spending money is the aspect of you that wants more financial security. You’re not going to ignore the other aspect of yourself, you’re not going to bully the other aspect of yourself, you’re not going to drag it along with you. You’re simply going to lead it in a very beautiful and fun way. You’re not trying to silence its expression, you are simply providing a structure and a framework that supports it. For example, imagine the two of you at Target, swirling, and gliding down the aisles together. You perform a glorious dip of your free-spending self right in front of the SodaStream machines. You see her eyes light up at the thought of bringing one home. She’s become distracted. It’s your job now to re-engage her in the dance. You don’t drop her on the floor and stomp off. You don’t jerk her up from the dip in anger. You pull her up gently and communicate with love, “Not today, maybe some other time.” And then you waltz her toward the aisle with the drain cleaning products, the reason you came to Target in the first place, to unclog your shower.
Be willing to make concessions.
When negotiating with yourself, you may need to make concessions. Leading yourself (or anyone for that matter) is not about being a tyrant. Because you asked, “What do they want?” in Step Three, you realize that what the other aspect of you is seeking in any purchase is a “feel good” boost. A temporary high. Remind the free-spending aspect of you that no one thing or no one being outside of herself can ever give her sustained happiness. Purchasing things to make her feel better in the moment will lead to disappointment once the thing is no longer new. However, you can agree that the two of you will go home and research SodaStream machines.
You can then calculate how much money you spend per month on cans of LaCroix. You can determine that by purchasing a SodaStream you will get your per can cost down from around .50 cents to .08 cents. You can determine that in about 6 months the machine will have paid for itself. You can also determine that it fits in with your values of generating less garbage. You can recycle your CO2 canisters and won’t be throwing all of those aluminum cans away.
Together, reach an agreement.
Both sides of you can agree to buy the SodaStream now that the two of you are in alignment. The free-spending side of you gets the thrill of a new “toy” and the logical, rational side of you gets the sustained happiness of knowing you made a thoughtful, deliberate purchase that you can feel good about.
Ultimately, what you are practicing is compassion. The more compassion you feel toward the aspects of yourself that you would like to change, the more compassion you will then be able to feel when you are negotiating with others. There is no anger in compassion. There is no frustration in compassion. There is no tyranny in compassion.
When we train ourselves to be compassionate toward ourselves, we become ambassadors of compassion. Ambassadors of compassion are empowered to reach a resolution, they are not abusers of power who try to manipulate, coerce, or force their will. Ambassadors of compassion strive to reach a resolution that all can agree to.
If you want to be an ambassador of compassion. Practice on yourself.
If you want to be a good negotiator. Practice on yourself.
If you want to change anything in your life. Practice on yourself.