Click to watch the video that corporate trainers and self-help gurus don’t want you to see as I uncover the industry-insider secrets which kill people. Learn the myths and dangers of self-help. What is shared in the video is not revealed below.

Self-help is an industry full of lies, myths, and dangers. It’s a community of experts and everyday consumers that have techniques and ways of living to heal anxiety, treat depression, and generally improve the quality of life.

Self-help is the act of improving yourself without reliance on others. It extends beyond motivation books and popular psychology to include other ways humans communicate. There’s forums, everyday conversations, seminars, webinars, and books.

The term “self-help junkie” was coined to describe someone who attends seminars and buys many books, DVDs, and CDs on the subject. Junkies fuel the $8 billion dollar industry in America alone.

Self-help addicts are sometimes like heroin addicts jumping between experts wanting their next fix. The educational sources become a source of comfort and security to avoid what really is going on as the junkies intellectualize lessons and never build the learning only possible from action. This article reveals the dangers of self-help some gurus wish you didn’t know and how it almost killed me.

The Two Dangers of Self-Help

Pennsylvania clinical psychologist Dr John Norcross says self-help can damage you in two ways. Both are costly, time-consuming, and energy-depleting.

The first general danger of self-help is the direct harm. This includes a misdiagnosis or ignorance of a declining condition. Think of it like a well-intended mother issuing aspirin to remove a headache when the cause is cancer.

The dangers are real except with personal development the issues are not physical, but often mental and emotional. Selection of the right material to cure is tricky. A wrong decision can leave you worse off.

There’s a lot going in your mind and body unknown to you. You can know your body is sick because you have a headache and feel weak, but you could have one of hundreds of potential health problems originating from poor eating, harmful drinking, disease, and so forth. Similarly, we are unaware of the hidden operations in the mind. It takes a humble attitude of acceptance to respect a lack of mental and emotional control over your life.

It takes a humble attitude of acceptance to respect a lack of mental and emotional control over your life.

The second general danger of self-help according to Dr Norcross is the indirect harm. You exhaust your physical, mental, and emotional efforts on something unsuccessful so you beat yourself up over an inability to change. Once you believe you cannot change, rarely do you change.

Think of self-help like a Do-It-Yourself job at home. You can probably do good landscaping, fix doors, place flooring, and paint. Books, television shows, and a few friends provide you with good advice. However, you would not remove the home’s foundations, redesign its shape, or relocate it by yourself. Attempts to solve unknown problems or create something entirely new leaves you frustrated believing it cannot be done. People try to redo their minds from the ground up then unfortunately fall short of what they want and believe failure is destiny.

How One Self-Help Myth Nearly Ended My Life

The empowerment given through self-help usually originates from improving how you think. The motto is “think better, live better”.

Thoughts are powerful, yet they are not everything contrary to what is preached by advocates of the law of attraction. To think your universe can form from thoughts alone is absurd.

An overt focus on thoughts ignores the side therapists attend to: emotions. Our thoughts influence our emotions and vice-a-versa, yet the influence is limited. You cannot think your way to emotional healing. Thoughts and rationalizations are “safe”. It is easy to intellectually process your problems and talk about them with complete emotional disconnect when you are afraid of vulnerability that reveals and heals your real self.

I’ll prove how intellectualizing and thinking stops emotional wealth. Dr Steven Hayes, founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), who I had the pleasure to work with for Big Talkers, has a nice technique. Give the label of “good” or “bad” to the follow emotions:

• Happiness
• Anger
• Guilt
• Joy
• Sadness
• Shame

Done? I’m guessing you labeled happiness and joy as “good” and anger, guilt, sadness, and shame as “bad”. Let’s analyze these labels. What if your mother died. Is sadness bad? What if you punched your child. Is guilt bad? When you put this into perspective, the thoughts you attach to “negative emotions” shift.

If you believe embarrassment is bad, you avoid embarrassing situations and never build the confident social life you want. You spend life running from what you don’t want.

How do you respond when something is bad? You avoid bad things because they represent pain. If you believe anger is bad, you avoid your anger, feel resentful, misunderstand people, and struggle to manage conflict. If you believe embarrassment is bad, you avoid embarrassing situations and never build the confident social life you want. You spend life running from what you don’t want.

I almost killed myself because of emotional avoidance. I lived in depression trying to avoid things like anger, shame, and embarrassment because these were “bad feelings”. Not letting feelings flow and trying to manipulate them increased their strength. (Watch the video shared at the top of this article filmed in my backyard for the dark truth about me.)

Dr Hayes says we have a dangerous habit of problem-solving with our mind. You need to stop critiquing the experiences in you and just let them flow. Observe them as they occur to you instead of worrying and trying to fix them. This is groundbreaking material I won’t go into further detail because it’s all covered in the Big Talk Training Course and Big Talkers, which I highly recommend you get if this article resonates with you.

Some self-help teachers encourage emotional expression. Students may practice poor expressions of anger and assertiveness, however, then kill themselves like Sydney resident Rebekah Lawrence. This is an extreme case. My point here is to make you value the messages sent by your emotions and acknowledge thoughts are not everything.

Positive Thinking Myth

Feeling down or thinking negatively? This self-help CD will cheer you up, but not in the way its creators intended.

Positive thinking is taught everywhere. Every mental health professional I’ve heard recommends positive thinking. I teach it as well. For example, assume friendship when approaching others for conversation. Think others are already your friend before you talk to them. This reduces anxiety, creates attractive body language, and makes talking easy. Positive thinking helps you better interact with people and them interact with you.

The danger with positive thinking that I see in many “pseudo-spiritual aka law of attraction” teachings is they take positive thinking beyond what psychologists believe is healthy. Dr Norcross says flamboyant claims are made.

Cancer, rape, and poor-wealth do not consistently originate from misaligned thoughts. Victims are made to feel they squandered their mind. They are blamed for environmental influences. Self-blame is unnecessary contrary to what self-help teaches because it perpetuates resistance and shame.

With excessive positive thinking you… may go to exorbitant lengths to avoid a problem by looking for the easy way out.

Your entire life is not a product of your thinking. With excessive positive thinking you risk building a life that excludes reality. You may go to exorbitant lengths to avoid a problem by looking for the easy way out. Positiveness becomes escapism.

Your comfort zone can stagnate along with the quality of your life through avoidance. Carl Jung says your dark-side (what you want to avoid) – not the light-side you probably love to focus on – contains the gold you seek. I look back on my life and see the areas where I took a step of courage to breach my comfort zone, transformed me. Look at your life and you will see the moments you acted in the face of fear created the greatest results. That is the core of transforming your social life with Big Talk and my coaching.

Self-Discipline Myth

Along similar lines as the exaggerated power of thoughts is the undue emphasis on self-discipline. Discipline is made to be the secret of change. We all know self-control and courage is important to help you confront what you prefer to avoid because it pushes you outside your comfort zone. The self-discipline myth depends on the definition of discipline.

Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled says, “With total discipline we can solve all problems.” The more I think about the statement, the more I see its truth. Again, though, it depends on what is meant by “discipline”.

When self-discipline is understood as willpower, self-discipline is overrated – even dangerous. I’ve heard many people express discouragement over their lack of discipline when it’s understood as willpower. They think something is wrong with themselves because they cannot change a habit like wake up early or quit smoking. Eventually they believe change is impossible because they have insufficient “discipline”. We’re made to feel as low-value humans for our innate habitual patterns.

Humans are autonomous creatures, not creatures of willpower. Studies prove 90% or more of your behavior is habitual. We think we are in conscious control of our lives, but we have behavioral and thought patterns repeating day-after-day. Your patterns simply vary in order.

This is not to say habits are permanent, yet they require focused effort and systems to assist change. How you use your limited willpower determines if you alter unwanted autonomy, remove a bad habit, and create the life you want.

It is sad most people waste their limited willpower on resisting people, thoughts, and feelings. Accepting a problem puts you in the game to fix or at least live with the problem. Acceptance means you humbly acknowledge your limited willpower, the degree you influence the problem, and the time it takes to stop what you don’t want and get what you do want.

What’s Really Going On with Self-Help and You?

Can you see the pattern of problems in most self-help? Thoughts are not everything, emotions are overlooked, positive thinking is taken too far, and self-discipline is overrated. There is a sinister amount of focus on intellectualizing. This is what drives the self-help junkie. Any self-help junkie will tell you he struggles to use what he knows.

Change can feel impossible by yourself. Years go by as you become a self-help junkie and question whether your dreams can become a reality. It’s okay to seek assistance from a therapist, counselor, or expert in your problematic area. Someone cannot drive you to change, but you cannot change without a drive to change.

How then do thousands of people around the globe change their life? Ad Bergsma in the Journal of Happiness Studies questioned whether self-help books help. Bergsma says hope is often what makes self-improvement programs effective. The downside of hope is it leaves you vulnerable to exaggerated claims and an empty wallet.

This post is not intended to degrade anyone or self-help. Authors and bloggers do their best to help, yet intention is not all that is needed to affect change.

Naming all self-help books bad or good is like saying all team leaders are bad or good. It is narrow-minded.

You can work on yourself with great results. Self-help empowers you to improve your relationships, move ahead in your career, make friends, and enjoy life more. You create your reality instead of feeling what is, will always be.

Personal development is key to my continuing growth. Self-help is just one part of it. I encourage it to be yours as well. Be aware the dangers of self-help and its myths shared in this article otherwise you risk wasting time, money, and effort – and ultimately believe something is inherently wrong with you.

If you read this to feel better about yourself, that was not my intent. Be honest about what you are avoiding. See the little control you have over your autonomous behavior. Invest in courses for your personal growth. Accepting these lessons could be your first-step towards change – and yes, I am giving you hope because there is hope.

This is not just an article to help you be assertive – it is a complete guide about the psychology of saying no. Too many people struggle to decline an offer, say they won’t help out, or reject a dangerous substance with confidence. Forces like guilt, peer pressure, and an inability to assert oneself makes people say yes, which puts them in situations they later regret.

Saying no helps with two main categories of situations. Firstly, it helps to avoid what is asked of you because of personal preference or your inability to fulfill the request. This category of situations involves donating to a charity because you have already donated to them, helping a friend when you have a more important task to do, or working overtime when you are going on holidays. You enjoy helping people, but you cannot help due to poor time, financial resources, or mental incapacity.

The second category of situations where assertive skills protect you are made of events that endanger your well-being. This category includes situations with drugs, alcohol, excessive stress, and loss of family-time. You have the time, money, and energy to give, but the situation is more threatening than the first category and ugly implications deter you from engagement. Saying no is difficult because you are coerced into compliance with peer pressure, guilt, intimidation, fear, or worry about being perceived as weak.

Why You Must Draw a Line: The Necessity and Benefits of Asserting No

It is vital for your wellbeing and your relationships to draw a line – and not cross it – in either category. When you fail to say no, you become resentful, bitter, spread thin, and risk your health. Your poor ability to say no has indirect effects difficult to comprehend.

Two serious situations in the second category of scenarios is being pressured into doing drugs or sex. Never accept a life-damaging decision due to intimidation and peer pressure when you can say no. It is a bonus if the other person respects your decision – not a necessity.

Most situations do not have the dangers associated with drugs, alcohol, or sex. You are peppered with requests day-in and day-out. Time is limited to do the necessities and the little extras you want. You must say no to people to get through the day with sanity.

You must gracefully say no if you’re to become a successful, powerful, happy individual. This assertive skill gives you the freedom and control to put your efforts where it matters most. Tony Blair knew he had to lead the United Kingdom by turning down requests and making priorities. “The art of leadership is saying no, not yes,” said the former Prime Minister. “It is very easy to say yes.”

I frequently tell, or ignore, casual website visitors and even subscribers who email me requesting my help with their communication – not because I’m a prick (or maybe I am) – but because I cannot let my time be consumed in ways where greater opportunity costs exist. People pay me five figures to receive one-on-one coaching so it is unfair for them to not receive special treatment.

Freebie seekers take whatever they can from others with no respect for who they take from and no desire to return favors. Be wary of saying yes to these people. They can control your life.

Stop hurting yourself by doing activities that contribute nothing to your values and long-term aspirations (this is the best skill I believe to increase productivity). Accepting more requests than you can handle as your most important tasks get overlooked makes you:

• do less enjoyable activities
• feel agitated towards loved ones from your repressed passions
• feel unfilled and unproductive
• develop a low self-esteem from the “but-I-work-so-hard-and-don’t-succeed” syndrome

Your poor ability to say no has indirect effects difficult to comprehend.

Research proves the guilt that drives human compulsion to say yes, wears down the body through stress, exhaustion, and mental dilapidation, as depression and a lack of passion develops. “Saying yes when you need to say no causes burnout,” says Duke Robinson, author of Too Nice for Your Own Good. “You do yourself and the person making the request a disservice by saying yes all of the time.”

Your leadership with work colleagues, family, or participants of a social group improves when values are clear. Learning to say no will improve your leadership skills as you develop a better team environment where you appropriately delegate tasks. You avoid tasks because you “do them best” and no longer micromanage people – two common problems for entrepreneurs. People can surprise you with their skills if you just let them, leaving you to complete other activities.

When you get good at saying no, others begin to respect your time and make less requests of you. You train people to behave a certain way with you as they avoid petty requests they know will be declined.

Once you become good at assertively saying no, your words will pack power when you comply with the request – something people previously took for granted. The “yes” becomes a clear crest rising from still waters, ascending people’s expectations. Scarcity makes people appreciate rarity over commonality.

Why It’s Difficult to Say No

Your boss asks, “Can you please put in another hour at work?” Do you give in or do you make an assertive stand? You crumble faster than my poor baking by giving in to the demand. Why do you say yes too often? What can you learn from this to be more assertive?

Maybe you do not say no because you think it’s selfish. There is nothing deep and messed up about you. You most likely just lack assertive communication skills.

Saying no like all assertive skills and techniques is not selfish under appropriate circumstances. Assertion generates a win-win result. Assertion is not a problem; it is a solution to one. A lack of assertion causes a win-loss result as you suffer from poor health, regrets, and low quality relationships. Frequent assertion can be inappropriate, but most people are too passive and don’t need to worry about this problem.

If you are a rarer person who aggressively declines a request, you still find it difficult to assertively say no, but situations affect you in a different way compared to passive persons. Pressure, stress, and intensity of a request grows for you as it eventually becomes too much and causes you to shout, “NO!” or degrade the person through remarks like, “I’m not doing what you say” or “You can’t tell me what to do”.

A compulsion to give because of guilt takes away the purist meaning of giving, which is to donate happily and freely.

Aside from communication styles, the most common reason people say yes is their guilt. The moral and social emotion dictates them to follow requests and orders. Charity workers sometimes instill guilt or shame in people so the only way they can alleviate the emotion is by making a donation.

Guilt compels you to give – often a good thing, but harmful when you want to say no. When your decision to give time, financial assistance, or any donation is made to avoid uncomfortable confrontation or guilt, the motive takes away the purist meaning of giving, which is to donate freely for the benefit of others. Giving is best done voluntarily otherwise resentment forms.

How to Eliminate Guilt in Saying No

Guilt is not bad like other emotions such as anger and anxiety. It exists for a reason. Guilt tells a message you need to hear.

People feel guilty when saying no because they lack or have a conflict of values. When you passionately believe an organization such as a racist group does not deserve a donation from you, saying no is simple. You feel no guilt. Your values against racial discrimination make it easy to feel zero guilt in saying no.

If you feel guilty by not donating to a good charity (a gray-colored situation compared to helping a racist group), your values are misaligned. It’s not that you don’t have values about helping people and organizations. One value compels you to give money or time (“Good people help others”, “I want to help the less fortunate”, and “I can give to receive”), while another value tells you otherwise (“You can’t afford it”, “You’ve got others things to do”, and “They don’t need what you have to offer”). Selecting one value or the other makes you feel guilty because the other value is ignored. A conflict of murky values spawns an unclear problem. It’s no wonder guilt can create an internal mess.

You can overcome feelings of guilt when saying no with an awareness of conflicting values, then align yourself with your highest values. If spending time with your children is more important than work, you can eliminate guilt about not working overtime. If doing your most valuable task at the start of the day is more important than a recreational activity, you can decline your friend’s offer to play sport with him and not feel guilty. If good health is more salient in your life than drugs and alcohol, no guilt or peer pressure will compel you to consume either. Identification with your most important value lets you make the decision to fulfill that value and happily stand by it.

To rid lingering guilt, sometimes it helps to revisit important values. Recite what values are important to you and why (“I’m not taking extra work home because my family-life suffers when I feel stressed”). Heavy guilt like any strong emotion communicates a message that needs attention. If further guilt surfaces, the problem is more complex and may need therapy to solve.

Let’s now discover the “how” of saying no.

Body Language – Saying No May Be Unnecessary

Saying no in some cases is enough. Without good body language, however, a simple no may not work.

If your body language is assertive, your words will be more assertive. Body language strengthens or weakens any verbal statement. If you lack good body language, any statement will lack power to be taken seriously. When words and body language conflict, you can bet people accept the message sent through body language as truth.

I was frequently asked to work extra hours at my old workplace, a supermarket where I packed shelves. I often lied to get out of working extra time, “I have university in the early morning.” The truth was I wanted to get home so I could work on EarthlingCommunication.com. I hated packing shelves, hearing I must work faster (it was low employee morale), and being criticized for not meeting productivity expectations. Sometimes I got out of work with minor guilt, but other times I had to work. The reason a lie saved me from prison while other times it sentenced me to additional time behind employer bars was the nonverbal cues.

When words and body language conflict, you can bet people accept the message sent through body language as truth.

When we tell the truth, our bodies naturally communicate the message with confidence. When we tell a lie, our bodies naturally communicate the message with low confidence. For this reason, I recommend you avoid lying by saying no for a true reason.

If you decide to lie or just want to enhance the strength of any assertive message, I have three assertive body language techniques for you to follow.

First is a eye contact technique. When the request is made, look into the person’s eyes for two seconds, look away for two more seconds, and then back into their eyes before making your statement. This provides a “thinking gap” that lets them know you pondered their request.

Do not give them a blank “dumb” stare. Make it a look of thought. Once the four seconds expire, simply say no or a variation of it provided below. This communicates confidence in your decision and that you are unlikely to change. The person will be less likely to repeat the request after you use the technique.

The second important tip in saying no through assertive body language is keeping consistent facial expressions. If you were bored before the request, don’t suddenly be animated otherwise the person will know something is up. Remove smiles or frowns, raised or lowered eyebrows, and anything else that communicates a negative or positive stance on the issue. Generally, a boring face shows you are unaffected by the person’s request.

The third important tip to put your noes on steroids is to maintain nonverbal smoothness. Keep your demeanor consistent with your demeanor prior to the request. Speak at the same volume, tone, and speed you did prior to saying no. Make smooth, minimal, confident movements. Nonverbally communicate subsequent requests with the same response as your first no.

A sign of unease hints at a lie to compel the person to persist in the request. If you suddenly have a nervous twitch when saying no, alarm bells ring for the person who will likely persist until you comply. Switching the topic and using sarcasm are two indicators of unease. The only different movement I recommend you have is shaking your head side-ways to nonverbally communicate your assertive message.

10 Proven Ways to Say No

There are many ways to say no that I’m about to describe below. You can choose a version you think is best for the situation without tying yourself to specific words and phrases that most articles on this topic advise because the following variations to say no are concepts, not word-for-word statements to mirror:

Plain No. Guess what this one involves? All you do is say no and move on. It is the least effective method, but this stock technique can work in simple situations.

Mirroring No. This variation involves sympathy where you communicate an understanding of the person’s situation, then follow it with your declining statement. Understanding people increases persuasive power. Let’s say your child’s sports coach asks you to be the team manager. You could respond with a “mirroring no” by saying, “I understand you’re after a team manager. It must be tough trying to organize the team, but I won’t be the team manager this season.”

If you do not understand someone, the person feels disconnected from you because we value those who understand our situation, feelings, and point of view. A misunderstood requester reasons, “You don’t understand me so you don’t understand the situation. I better keep bugging you until you do.”

Reason-Why No. One Harvard psychologist in a study gave his partner in crime a stack of papers to photocopy. The subject was told to try and jump the photocopying queue through one of two statements. When the subject said, “Excuse me, I’ve got five pages. May I jump in and use the machine?” 60% of people complied. When the subject said, “Excuse me, I’ve got five pages. May I jump in and use the machine because I’m in a rush”, 94% complied. The researchers discovered that providing a reason with a request increases compliance.

Providing a reason with a request increases compliance.

If a charity worker asks for a donation, you can say, “No I won’t donate because I’ve donated to another organization last week” or “No I won’t donate because I don’t want to”. Reread the second example and you will notice something peculiar: the reason provides no new information just like “I’ve got five pages”. Everyone in the photocopying line has pages to print, yet giving a reason makes the request more persuasive because we comply more often when given a reason. (I just used the technique on you!)

The requester may use a similar variation of this technique on you. Be wary of the person who gives a reason for their request to stop yourself getting sucked into a situation you want to avoid.

You can use the reason-why technique in combination with assertive body language and another variation of saying no to really pump-up your assertive power.

General No. The “general no” prevents the requester feeling isolated. Your goal is to come across as if you would decline the request with anyone in that situation. The variation is great for people who request money. A friend asks you for a loan to which you reply, “Sorry, I won’t. I don’t lend money to people.”

Delayed No. Simply say, “I’ll get back to you at a later time.” Meanwhile, the person may find someone else to do the job or the problem may solve itself. You also give yourself time to think of what to say if the person makes the same request later on. The “delayed no” technique is great if you’re a manager, entrepreneur, or team leader when someone drags you from an important task. People may only come to you because you willingly helped them in the past. They often are capable of solving their own problems.

Conditional No. State the conditions that govern you accepting the appeal. Decline if the conditions are not met. Only use this technique if you are willing to accept the request because the person may align their initial request with your listed conditions. As an example of the conditional no, your boss asks you to work overtime to which you reply, “I can work overtime, but only for one hour. If an hour isn’t good enough, I’ll have to say no.”

Painful No. Emphasize the future pain the person would experience if you decline the request at a later time. If your boss asks you to take on an extra assignment, you could say, “For both our sake I’m going to say no. The quality of my work declines when I’m not focused on one assignment. I don’t want to give you bad work, hurt my position here at the company, and as a result, make you get someone else to redo the assignment at a later date.”

Solution No. Decline the request then suggest someone or a work-around the person can use to solve the problem. As an example: “I cannot go out with you tonight because I need to work, but if you need transport, there’s a good bus service near the shops.”

Be careful throwing another person in the hole you occupied when they might hate it. Connect people you believe will help one another and both will benefit.

Repetitive No. The “repetitive no” variation uses an assertive skill known as the “broken record technique”, which repeats a statement. Say the same “no statement” over and over until the person stops their request. People slightly change repeated requests, but keep the statement unchanged. Here is an example scenario:

“Can you help me move house this weekend?”
“I have to work so I can’t help you move out.”
“I really need help. Can you help me move house?”
“I have to work so I can’t help you move out.”
“It’ll only be for a few hours. Can you?”
“I have to work so I can’t help you move out.”

Respectful No. Firstly use one of the other variations to say no. If the person persists with their request, use the “respectful no” variation. Communicate your wishes for the person to respect your decision. “Please don’t make the same request again. I’ve said no. Can you please accept that?” Do this with compassionate body language to avoid coming across as aggressive.

There are many ways to say no without feeling guilty. Pick the ones you like suited to the situation.

Once you use the above advice, the last and most important thing you can do is be prepared to walk away. Someone could persist with a request only because you stand there. Some salespersons are ruthless and persist at persuading you to buy until you move to leave. Salespersons rely on your guilt to stay with them until a perfect moment that rarely arrives signals for your departure.

“No” is not a bad word if you know how to say it effectively with your body and words. Stop thinking this assertive skill is bad because such thoughts make you feel guilty. When you want to decline a request, you actually hurt the person and the relationship with resentment by accepting the request. Turning down a request you want to avoid benefits everyone in the long-run. If you don’t achieve that outcome, then you have something to be guilty about.

After studying communication for almost a decade, I notice we make many dumb relationship mistakes and communication errors that I’m about to share with you. I use the term “dumb” not to put you down, but to label the mistakes lots of people repeat. Put an end to these 15 relationship mistakes in no particular order:

1. Withhold Feeling

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.Benjamin Franklin

Men are more guilty than women in withholding feelings from their partner. We tend to hide our irritation instead of revealing what annoyed us. Women are indirectly guilty of this relationship mistake. While women are more emotional than men, they withhold feelings in the sense that they blame or criticize others to indirectly express emotion. Saying, “I hate you for…!” is not a good way to express feelings. An expression of emotion is, “I feel sad about…” “I’m feeling happy you…” “I am angry!”

2. Reject Emotion

You choose a path; a direction, not an immediate outcome. You don’t choose how to feel or what pops into your head. You can choose a path that leads towards what you value or you can choose avoidance and fusion. Your choice.Steven Hayes

We may withhold feelings from someone because we reject emotion. It is uncomfortable for most people to feel guilt, shame, anger, sadness, and even love so they reject these emotions by thinking positively or generally suppressing them. Your relationships deteriorate if you suppress anger, for example, because you resent and behave bitterly with people. You feel whatever you do for a reason – accept it. The next time you feel something intense, notice if you want run from it or embrace it.

3. Blame

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.Seneca

The failure to healthily express emotion can show itself through blame, a common relationship mistake. Look at an argumentative couple to see each person blaming the other for relationship problems. Neither acknowledges imperfection, preferring to be right. Each person thinks people ought to change instead of taking the responsibility for self-change. Victimization is a relationship mistake unhealthy for either person.

4. Gossip

Live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.Will Rogers

People gossip about their relationships mainly for self-pity. They seek validation the other is to blame for relationship problems. If you have a relationship problem, talk with the person you share the problem with and stop complaining about it to your friends or coworkers. The other person is not the cause of your suffering; you are because of your ignorance to the problem through gossip. If a gossiper puts the mirror on himself, he would realize the rumors hurt his relationships. A gossiper is no better than the originator of the problem. Neither roles create resolution – both compound it.

5. Negatively Interpret Behaviors

Analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values.Marshall Rosenberg

Give people a margin-for-error because you do not know every detail.

A gossiper is one example of someone who interprets behavior in a negative light. Each little behavior signals a conspiracy against the cynic. If you think your husband is having an affair, anything he does will be filtered through that perspective. If you think a friend is turning against you, you will think him declining an invitation reflects such hatred.

Give people a margin-for-error because you do not know every detail. Each of us hold a piece of truth discoverable through communication. The best way to resolve your worries is to ask the person by showing interest in their life.

6. Show A Lack of Interest

There are two levers for moving men: interest and fear.Napoleon Bonaparte

Do you know what happened to your partner today? When was the last time you watched a friend play their weekly sport? When did you last ask what someone did at work? Get curious about people’s lives by asking a lot of questions and displaying attentive body language. Communication often lacks in relationships because neither person takes the initiative to learn about the other person. Interest in people’s lives makes them feel important, builds the relationship, and teaches you a lot of great stuff in the process. Think of something a person important to you enjoys then go do it with them. You may even want to take up a new hobby together like dancing or yoga.

7. Exert Excessive Control

When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result.Byron Katie

We hate being controlled and told what to do. The worst managers micro-manage to dictate employee behavior. Many angry employees echo similar remarks.

The greatest leaders give team members freedom. The same is true in families and other interpersonal relationships. If you order your teenage daughter to not smoke, research shows she is more likely to smoke. One study looked at how values transmit through families and found that children with authoritarian parents have differing values. When parents are more supportive rather than restrictive, children agree and accept similar values.

8. Try to Change People

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity.Dale Carnegie

Whenever we try to change people, whether it be through manipulation, criticism, orders, threats, or rewards, they take on strange behavior. Do a test over a non-important issue with someone you know well. Intentionally tell the person what they are doing is wrong. The person may not change, become suddenly quiet, resent you, look at you weird, or purposefully do what you said not to do. Changing people is not the issue – what you say and how you come across is the issue.

9. Remain Unchanged

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.George Bernard Shaw

We expect people to change while we remain unchanged. Rigid perspectives on money, family, work, emotion, and the relationship creates severe friction that can destroy a relationship. “If my coworker stopped…then I’d be able to…” “If my son stopped…then I could…” “My partner should…then I’d feel…” I’ll give you an if-statement to remember: if you don’t change, you have no right to expect people to change.

10. Keep One’s Point of View

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.Leonardo da Vinci

It is logically and mathematically irrational to conclude one can be right 95% of the time.

What is your honest estimate of the percentage you think you are right in an argument? 80? 90? 100%? I estimate most people say 95%. That means a fighting couple’s righteousness totals 190%, a formula for conflict. It is logically and mathematically irrational to conclude one can be right 95% of the time. We are not divine beings knowing of truth.

Each of us possess parts of truth that we must be flexible enough to explore. The cure to any couple’s problem is held by each person because their point of view is 50% of the relationship.

11. Deny Flaws

It takes a lot of courage to face up to things you can’t do because we feed ourselves so much denial.Zoe Saldana

Refusal to change and determination to stick to your original point of view is a pursuit of perfection. No one is perfect. We understand that in our head but emotionally do not live it out. We prefer to blame and hate others. A simple sit-down discussion where the two of you each admit three flaws about yourselves helps keep destructive perfection at bay while encouraging growth. You do not fear imperfection when mistakes are encouraged to surface.

12. Do Not Appreciate

I can live for two months on a good compliment.Mark Twain

Relationships are easy to take for granted. We devalue what we have while desiring what is out of our reach. Put effort into the relationship. You can show people you value the relationship with them through admiration. Give a compliment. Send a gift. Thank someone for a task they did. Phone one person now to thank them for something specific.

13. Judge Others

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.Carl Jung

We love to judge people. As described in my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book, there are four judgments: criticism, labeling, diagnosing, and praising. We criticize (“You are no good at helping me”), label (“You are a jerk”), diagnose (“Stop being rude because you don’t get what you want”), and praise (“You are the sweetest person for doing that”). Each judgment has its own problems too deep to described in this article.

14. Send Solutions

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.Marcus Aurelius

It is counterintuitive that solutions kill relationships. After all, don’t solutions cure problems? More often than not in relationships, solutions create problems. We feel inferior being controlled. The problem-solver often overlooks the real issue. Solutions are usually manifestations of other dumb relationship mistakes like blame, gossip, trying to change people, and sticking to one’s point of view.

15. Avoid Other’s Concerns

The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.William Hazlitt

The most frequent dumb mistake people make in a relationship is avoiding their partner’s concerns. Look at any bad relationship and each person will tell you their needs are not being met. They are not being listened to, understood, cared for, loved, whatever. Good communication is the key to overcoming these problems and meeting each other’s needs.

There you have 15 mistakes people frequently make in their relationships. Follow this advice then hopefully the next time you ask someone your mistakes in the relationship, no walls break because no walls exist.

(If you are reading this and want to eliminate the communication mistakes that hurt your relationships, read my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book to discover the 12 barriers of communication. All the dumb relationship mistakes can be avoided when you understand the 12 barriers.)

Passiveness, otherwise known as submissiveness, is the opposite to aggression. Passiveness literally means detachment and acceptance. It is acted upon rather than acts on something. Passive communication involves “keeping under the radar”, “not sticking up for yourself”, saying yes when you really want to say no, and overly “selfless behaviors”. While passiveness is different to being shy or quiet, shy or quiet individuals are often passive.

There are benefits to passive behavior and communication that make it a problem in families, the workplace, and other interactions. I want to share with you the deep reasons behind why people avoid “sticking up for themselves” and many other passive behaviors in this article. Once you understand this behavior, a powerful world is revealed before your eyes that would otherwise have remained hidden. Like all the communication secrets in my “Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program”, the things once hidden become visible to empower you to communicate powerfully with people.

Adult Contribution to Weak Behavior

Parents, teachers, and adults in general are partly responsible for passive behavior and communication in children. At a young age and continually in life, adults condition passive people to continue submissive behavior through verbal rewards. Passive individuals receive praise for their selfless actions, keeping quiet, and not voicing their concerns.

Passiveness literally means detachment and acceptance. It is acted upon rather than acts on something.

A bully steals a toy from a young girl who does nothing about it. An adult observing the girl tells her she is nice for not doing anything and making the bully angry. A student sits in the classroom, not answering any questions. The teacher at a parent-teacher interview says to the child’s parents that the child is nice and quiet. A young boy is asked what he wants for dinner, but his brothers and sisters interrupt him by saying what they want. The young boy then says, “I’m happy with what the others want” to which his parent praise him for compliance and selfless.

These three examples demonstrate how people are trained to continue passive behavior. Overtime, occasional passive behavior shapes into a stringent passive personality. Soon enough, the person does not defend his space, participate in decision-making, or state his desires. What appears “nice” transforms into a habitual communication and behavioral problem that sucks the life from the person and his relationships. It’s no wonder people struggle to learn assertive communication skills.

Behaviors in Conflict

Conflict contains several reasons for passive behavior and communication. Passive individuals avoid conflict by remaining quiet as they avoid expressing their point of view.

A failure to express their point of view occurs outside of conflict – it is frequent in conversations and social interactions. When they are asked what they’d like, where they want to go, or what they want to do, they passively respond: “I’m happy with whatever you want”. Rarely are they truly happy with what the other person wants. While they say “I’m happy with whatever you want”, the truth of the matter is their decision (or indecision) comes from a fear of disapproval.

Passive individuals are praised for their selfless actions.

Another reason passive behavior is beneficial for people who disconnect themselves from conflict and conversations is blame-avoidance. A person that says, “I’m fine with anything you decide”, puts the final decision on somebody else. The passive person leaves the other person to select an option. When the option is undesirable, the passive person can readily and easily blame the decision-maker for their choice.

Yet another reason someone can behave passively and avoid conflict is their protection from others. Other people fight for the person, which often gets them what they want. Some people laugh, get angry, or ignore an aggressive person, but when someone cries, most people stop what they’re doing to give the crying person what they want to wipe away their tears. A habitual crier can be more manipulative than an aggressor.

See the Price of Nice to Breaks Its Vice

So far you have seen the beneficial reasons for passive behavior and communication. Up until now, it seems to be an attractive way of behaving. Passiveness is not a nice way of living because of its many destructive outcomes. By learning the negatives of passive behavior, you can break free from submissiveness and become motivated to help other people assert themselves.

Common problems with passiveness include:

• Unsatisfying relationships. Passive individuals are detached from their communication and relationships. They are completely disengaged from intimacy. They avoid intimacy because their authentic self is protected with the “nice guy” or “nice girl” mask.
• Growth is thwarted. Passive individuals create an environment where authentic feedback is not given or received. To critique a “nice person” makes the criticizer a guilt-ridden, bad person. Similarly, the nice person does not give feedback to other people.
• Induces shame in others. Nice guys and girls manipulate others with guilt and shame. They avoid responsibility and giving feedback, making others feel shameful for their feelings towards the nice person. For example, the would-be receiver of a nice person’s feedback feels angry for not getting feedback then becomes shameful for feeling angry at the nice person. (The person is nice after all and it’s wrong to be mad at nice people.)
• Others get irritated. A guy forgoes his needs by molding himself into his lover’s ideal image. He thinks focusing on his partner is the relationship-healthy thing to do. The passive individual overtime frustrates his partner with high compliance. His overt agreeableness leads to pity and irritation. It is frustrating to be with someone who does not tell you what he feels and wants.
• Selfishness. Selflessness is selfish because the “selfless person” doesn’t have the capacity to act beyond oneself. It may sound contradictory to passive behavior, but the passive individual who lets others have their way robs himself of happiness and love. The person is unable to love others because he holds resentment and frustration against those he is selfless towards. People who give up their own lives to be loved by someone are often shocked when they discover the other person dislikes them for their plasticity approach to life.
• Volcanic build up of resentment. Forgo your own needs, avoid voicing your concerns, do not talk about yourself, and dodge confrontation – that’s a potent recipe for a life filled with resentment. All that pressure inside of you cannot remain hidden. Emotional eruptions eventually burst forth as seen in passive-aggressive behavior.
• Passive-aggressive behavior. I’ve heard marriage counselors incorrectly refer to passive-aggressive behavior as passive behavior, but behaviors like resentment and secret sabotaging can manifest from passiveness. Passive-aggressive behaviors include sarcasm, lying, and blaming. These behaviors are often expressed in sporadic outbursts to temporarily release the frustration of bottled emotions. Passive individuals are prone to flares of aggression. Momentary aggressive outbursts can occur because suppressed emotions suddenly gush to the surface. When I was overly passive, sarcasm was my common way of releasing anger from an inability to assert myself and express my feelings.
• Lack of emotional control. This is another paradoxical effect of passive behavior. Passive individuals think they manage their emotions through suppression, but the opposite results. Suppressed anger shows in many ways more harmful than if the person dealt with the emotion upfront. Suicide is the ultimate outcome of emotional suppression.

Passive individuals are prone to flares of aggression. Momentary aggressive outbursts can occur because suppressed emotions suddenly gush to the surface.

As you can see, there are many negative outcomes for passive behavior. While it can feel like an attractive behavior, it is very destructive for relationships and makes the passive person miserable. Passive behavior like aggression creates a win-loss or loss-loss outcome.

The powerful person, as outlined in my “Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program” is not passive nor aggressive. The powerful person is assertive. The powerful person does not need to get his way on every occasion. He is occasionally aggressive and occasionally lets others have their own way, but when his personal space is trampled on, he does something to regain his space. While passive individuals do not protect themselves, their possessions, or other people, the powerful person protects. A powerful person knows how to get what he wants while giving others what they want – and this attracts people into his life.

You can become powerful instead of living at the helms of jerks, loud-mouths, and others who talk better than you. If you want to break through passive behavior, I encourage you to get my “Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program”. I have overcome the same problem of submissiveness, shyness, and quietness you’re trying to defeat. You can gain the respect you want by learning more about the program here. If you want to defeat shyness forever, learn about my Big Talk course here.

In the first three parts of the course you learned the power of apologizing, common mistakes and barriers in apologizing, and how to correctly apologize. We have nearly covered all you need to know for a successful apology to heal relationships from pain. In this part, it is time to learn the art of forgiveness to build the roof of emotional freedom to protect, empower, and encapsulate what you have learned in this course.

Let’s look at how apologizing and forgiveness work together. Up until now in the course, we have focused on apologizing and emotional healing. What do you do if a person is unwilling to forgive? Are there certain communication skills you can use to help the person forgive you or should you move on instead and accept the person’s unwillingness to forgive you as their problem? How can we forgive others and start experiencing more happiness, success, and enjoyable relationships as a result of forgiveness?

The Ugly Duckling: Dealing With Unforgiveness and the Odd One Out

There once was an ugly duckling who felt unrelated to his brothers and sisters. His difference frustrated him. While his brothers and sisters were a lovely white color, he was the odd one out with gray-colored feathers. To make him more different, he was large and clumsy. One day the duckling had enough of being rejected so he ran away from home.

One year later, the once ugly duckling – now a young swan – saw many white swans swimming in a pond. The young swan admired their beauty, waiting to be rejected like the other times in his life. To his surprise, the swans welcomed the young swan as part of their group. They declared him to be the most beautiful swan of them all.

Over the years I’ve come to notice that while there are laws and principles that govern how to get the most out of communication, quite a few times an ugly duckling exists. This ugly duckling is the exception to the group. I will read, learn, apply, change, and reapply skills in my life; yet there always appears to be the exception when a skill doesn’t work – a reaction doesn’t take place, for example, or words aren’t received the right way.

There are skills you can use to get a desired response, to get people doing what you want, and to build healthy relationships, but the skills often have an exception like the ugly duckling. Psychology is about categorization and understanding, but even psychologists know they cannot categorize humans. With the complexity of human behavior, it is impossible to establish unbreakable skills that work every time. The ugly duckling for you right now could be the person who is unwilling to forgive you or the circumstance where you are unwilling to forgive.

There will always be people who never accept your apology and refuse to forgive you. If you have planned, taken responsibility, used good timing, explained yourself, and sympathized (as taught in the earlier lesson on how to correctly apologize) and the person does not forgive you, move on. You can only do so much. I still encourage you to put the following skills to use that will help the person find forgiveness, but be prepared to move on and not expect anything in return. Life is too short to be burdened by people’s miseries and resentment.

Provided you’ve done everything in your power and the person is yet to forgive, the person’s unforgiveness is his or her problem. He or she will be burdened by the grudge more than you. Moreover, if you move on, the person maybe willing to accept your apology at a later time.

Where’s Your Awareness?

It is easy to blame others for not doing something they should have done, but this is an illusion. We all think, feel, and behave the best we possibly can at any point in time. Whether you lose a peaceful attitude as you lash out in an argument or miss an easy goal in soccer, hockey, or football, you always achieve your best. You may feel you could have done better in past situations, but the truth is: you did your best.

I once struggled to agree with this principle. When I learned this the first time, I was astounded and felt compelled to disagree with it due to my conditioning from sport coaches, family, and others who use to tell me, “Come on. You can do better than that!” This is partly true.

Your best performance is based on your present level of awareness. A sports coach who revs up his players about not doing their best is still right, yet this is misinterpreted. The sports coach who yells at his players stimulates a new awareness that they are not trying their hardest. While the players underperformed, they still did their best. What the coach does is create a new awareness in the players, which allows them to do better than their prior performance.

No one can act beyond their present awareness.

Applying this law of awareness to our communication and relationships, we have different perceptions, understandings, and experiences – which forms our current awareness – than one another. This creates conflict as someone gets frustrated over someone else not having similar awareness.

Forgiveness and healing is impossible if one’s level of awareness is not high enough. No one can act beyond their present awareness. Awareness applies in being conscious of the fault at hand and knowing the art of forgiveness. A greater awareness can be created from learning the skills and mindset one must have to forgive, which leads to problem identification and a solution.

Someone may not forgive you because they are unaware of the secret art of forgiveness you are discovering in this article. By shifting their awareness, you can transition them into forgiveness, opening their mind with what could occur from emotional healing.

Effects of Not Forgiving

Forgiveness is not limited to religion (though religious individuals probably see a lot similarities and power with the advice in this article). Forgiving others and giving an effective apology to be forgiven creates emotional freedom – one reason forgiveness is seen by many in spiritual terms.

The root of evil, negative actions, grudges, anger, resentment, hatred, and envy begin with unforgiveness. It may seem religious to you, but rejecting someone else’s apology and not forgiving them leads to these effects. Anger is not bad, for example, but you can easily feel angry by resenting something from the past.

Should not forgive someone over one issue, there is enough potential in the resentment and anger generated from that problem to damage your life. That’s right. Just one, single, solo, individual, lone grudge is enough to ruin someone’s life. You can live in anger, misery, and resentment because one grudge causes other things in your life to crumble around you.

To demonstrate how one issue can damage a person’s whole life, I’ll use an example many people struggle to handle: their upbringing. You may have never talked about this problem with anybody your entire life. You may have been abused by your parents at an early age or perhaps they made some wrong decisions that negatively affected you. Let’s say you have experienced such a problem from your parents.

The mistake they (or your mother or father alone) made hurts you deeply, generating severe emotional pain. You hold this mistake against your parents. Even though you forgive everybody else – and your parents on other problems – you cannot forgive your parents for this one problem. Though you are now someone who forgives everyone because you have learned from this course that you need to forgive others, you have been unable to forgive your parents for how they raised you. As a result, you constantly live in anger and resentment. One issue is enough to make your entire life unhappy.

You cannot afford to let this happen by not forgiving others. Do not be that person who cannot forgive. Clear your mind by clearing the other person’s slate of mistakes. Forgive every person, on every issue, every time – or suffer the negative effects of resentment. To do this, there is one principle in the secret art of forgiveness I live by that changed my life and will change yours as it allows you to forgive others over issues you thought were insurmountable.

The Secret Art of Forgiveness – Whose Canvas is It?

I believe there is one true life-changing secret in finding the art of forgiveness. There is one mindset that changed my life forever and allowed me to start forgiving, healing pain, overcoming problems, letting go, eliminating the blame-game from my life, and truly getting on with life.

Are you interested in creating a master piece by forgiving others? Are you ready to begin painting your life and taking control of how you feel? Are you willing to no longer let the past mistakes of other people make you angry, frustrated, and resentful? Are you interested in teaching others how they can apply this secret art of forgiveness so they can forgive you?

When you do not forgive, you probably think your resentment hurts the person who hurt you. You hold unhappiness and painful memories against people who inflicted pain on you in an effort to reciprocate their damage.

The art of forgiveness lies in knowing your hurtful attachment to the past does people no harm – it only hurts your wellbeing.

The art of forgiveness lies in knowing your hurtful attachment to the past does people no harm – it only hurts your wellbeing. Throw your grudges on the ground by acknowledging that what you do to make people unhappy only makes you unhappy. The gun you fire is off target and the recoil blasts into your face. You are not messing up somebody’s piece of art; you are scribbling on your masterpiece. Once you acknowledge the resentment you hold hurts you more than it hurts others, you change your life.

You can only forgive someone when you make the choice to be happy instead of right. If you see the person as having done wrong and you are right, you will forever be tied to painful emotions. The art of forgiveness is not about who is right and who is wrong – it is about making the choice of happiness over righteousness. Only then do you become free from a painful past. You will at last paint your life the way you want.

Forgiving a person does not “let them off the hook”. It doesn’t mean you accept or condone the person’s behavior, or trust the person. What forgiveness does mean is a clean future in the face of a dirty past. In part three of this course I said:

If another person holds the bitter memories and resentment of your mistake against you, the person has not forgiven. It is almost humanly impossible, however, to forget another’s mistake. Forgiveness heals the past releasing ill will against the person. Not forgetting provides a memory of the pain that guides future actions. Forgiveness and forgetting are closely knit together, yet define entirely different things.

An apology is successful when it is accepted and the mistake no longer is held against you. The person may not forget your mistake, but he or she forgives you and no longer resents you for the mistake or uses it to manipulate you. Resentment, frustration, anger, gossip, bitterness, ill will, and other outward manifestations of hatred are erased upon a successful apology. Someone with these emotions possibly signals the person has yet to forgive.

Forgiveness is not easy, but by acknowledging the only person you hurt with resentment is yourself, you relinquish pain and relish the happiness you were born to experience – which may lead the person to forgive you for your mistakes.

You can only forgive someone when you make the choice to be happy instead of right.

If someone is yet to forgive you, make sure you have entirely forgiven them then communicate that you thought you were hurting them by not forgiving, but you only hurt yourself. What you are doing with this technique is educating the person in an indirect manner about the art of forgiveness so your passive advice is not rejected. It will increase the person’s awareness of forgiveness so they more likely accept your apology and forgive you. “To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love,” said Robert Muller, a well-known advocate of world peace. “In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.”

More Materials to Create the Art of Forgiveness

The information I have given so far is enough to help some people forgive others, apologize, and encourage others to forgive, but here are additional sources and tips to find the art of forgiveness:

• Check out the many powers of apologizing. Doing this will create massive amounts of pleasure to motivate yourself to apologize, forgive, and free yourself from resentment.
• “I know what you said Josh, but I can’t forgive my enemies. What do I do?” You only hurt yourself when you fail to forgive. You don’t have to forget the past, but you need to release resentment. Cry about it to purge resentment. You hurt enemies more by forgiving them than bottling up your resentment. Nothing makes your enemies more satisfied than seeing you beat yourself over an issue you inaccurately think hurts them. Oscar Wilde was quoted in saying, “Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.”
• We are full of mistakes. Acknowledging this helps you see someone’s mistake as them being a typical human. A mistake-filled life is natural so we all need forgiveness to heal our past.
• Are your expectations of the person too high? Expectations determine satisfaction. If your expectations in the person are too high, you set yourself for a hard fall. Unreasonable expectations lead to unreasonable circumstances where it can be difficult to forgive the person for not meeting your expectations.

As you apply parts of the course, the skills will become more natural to you. Where you once would hide beneath your pride, guilt, or resentment as you fail to apologize and forgive, you will now create emotional freedom. Even when an ugly duckling arrives in your life, you can now forgive and encourage others to forgive.

People you apologize to will feel loved by you from the open communication. You will experience happiness and inner peace, freeing yourself from guilt, anger, resentment, and other forms of bitterness. You will at last take advantage of the powers of apologizing. Put away your pride, bring out your apologies, and forgive people.

Links to all four parts of this course, “Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain: A Four Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom”:

1. The Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. How to Forgive and Be Forgiven – The Art of Forgiveness

Part three of this course provides you with many tips, techniques, and pieces of advice to help you correctly apologize. The advice I’m about to share with you will help you in ways beyond an apology. The tips can be applied to many areas of your life and communication as you will soon see.

What It Means to Correctly Apologize: To Be Forgiven and Forgotten?

Some people think apologizing correctly is as simple as saying “sorry” for a mistake. This is a shallow understanding of what you need to achieve in an apology. The goal of apologizing – and what I define as “apologizing correctly” – is when the person you hurt accepts your apology and forgives you. The person neither rejects your apology by saying something like “no need to apologize” nor holds the mistake against you. Things do not necessarily return to how they were before.

It is beyond the purpose of an apology to make your relationship stronger or indifferent before your mistake. The severity of the mistake affects the relationship, not so much the apology. If you keep screwing up with mistake after mistake, you can have successfully apologized when the person forgives you, but your relationship can still be different.

There is a lot of confusion about the old phrase “We must not forget; but we must forgive”. We know forgiveness is a must. Without it, the person unwilling to forgive emotionally suffers, often leaving the person who did the damage unscathed. But where does forgetting sit in a successful apology? Should we aim to have our mistakes forgotten by those we hurt?

If another person holds the bitter memories and resentment of your mistake against you, the person has not forgiven. It is impossible, however, to forget the mistake of another. Forgiveness heals the past releasing ill will against the person. Not forgetting provides a memory of the pain that guides future actions. Forgiveness and forgetting are closely knit together yet define different things.

An apology is successful when it is accepted and the mistake is no longer held against you. The person may not forget your mistake, but he or she forgives you, no longer resents you for the mistake, and does not use the mistake to manipulate you. Resentment, frustration, anger, gossip, bitterness, ill will, and other outward manifestations of hatred are erased upon a successful apology. Someone with these emotions signals the person has yet to forgive.

The person forgives you for your mistake. Resentment, frustration, anger, gossip, bitterness, ill will, and other outward manifestations of hatred are erased.

Now that a successful apology is defined, note that a correct apology can do so much. There is no iron-clad, fool-proof, guaranteed technique to successfully apologize. Sometimes you need to suffer through your mistakes and bear the punishment. Apologizing can sometimes be a bandage on a wound to help heal the pain. If the wound is repeatedly reopened, it is not the bandage’s fault, but the person who inflicted the pain. Most people can forgive you so many times before they lose trust in you. A reoccurring problem needs to be handled instead of expecting an apology to make amends.

Though apologizing correctly can be difficult, use the following tips. You will fix your mistakes, repair your relationships, and initiate emotional healing and freedom. Master these tips and you will be equipped with the tools to repair emotional damage from your mistakes.

Create a Simple Plan

Plan what you’re about to say by thinking through your apology beforehand. Prepare yourself to give a sincere apology. Write down your apology to clarify your thoughts so you increase the chances of it being a success.

When intense emotions fly everywhere in a situation like in a heated argument, it’s hard to think of what you want to express yet alone say it in a constructive manner. Intense emotions blind you to constructively express your thoughts. Plan your thoughts before going “live” with your apology to increase the likelihood of a successful apology. A plan guides you helping you not deviate with relationship damaging statements too common in emotionally intense situations.

The same lesson in planning carries over to help you set then achieve life goals. Success stems from seeds planted from planning. Planning nurtures golden relationships.

Take Responsibility

Admit you hurt the person. Your innate social intelligence will give you an intuition or feeling when you hurt someone. If you hurt the person by saying something offensive, admit your mistake. Don’t say, “You shouldn’t be offended by what I said.” Avoid a non-apology (from part two on barriers and mistakes made in apologizing), which involves blaming the other person while simultaneously giving a poor apology. Here are non-apology examples:

• “I apologize to those I hurt because of their loss.”
• “I’m deeply sorry for those who I may have offended.”
• “Please take my apology if you were offended by what I said.”

These examples appear to be apologies, but are attempts to avoid responsibility. Own up to the mistake and take responsibility regardless of your intentions and whether it truly hurt the person. The little voice that deters you from responsibility and apologizing is your ego. Egos are filled with deceitful lies and pride.

How to Time Your Apology

Apologize straight away for a little problem to prevent it growing into a big one. If you accidentally step on someone’s foot, say “sorry” straight away instead of apologizing at a later time. (I’m sure the person will think you’ve got some serious problems if you write an apology for stepping on their foot.)

For a more serious problem, take the time to get in a good environment where you can honestly apologize and the person can safely respond. Keep out of the “boiling room” by trying to apologize when the two of you have red-hot emotions.

It may help to give the person time after your apology. You can have all the right ingredients for a meal, but time is needed to cook the ingredients. Provide the person with extra space to let the person come to terms with what happened. Letting your apology seep in could be what makes your apology successful.

Explain What Happened

Why did you make the mistake? You are not justifying what you did (this would only make your apology worse). Let the person know of your faults. Become vulnerable. Explain to the person that you didn’t see them there, you let your anger get the better of you, you were ignorant, you should have understood them better – whatever the mistake maybe.

Explain why you did what you did without blaming the mistake on external circumstances. It is tempting when explaining your mistake to shift the explanation onto the other person. You start off by saying, “I’m sorry for not taking out the garbage…” then your selfishness can kick in as you say “…but I always take out the rubbish and you don’t ever do it!” Explain the problem, but don’t convert it into someone else’s problem through a non-apology.

Use the who, what, why, when, and how to get you started in explaining your mistake. A full explanation can be unnecessary. Just say what you think will help clarify the situation between you two.

One last point about explaining is to avoid going overboard with your apologies and make a big issue over something small. It’s annoying to have someone constantly say “sorry” or use other forms of apologizing when you have forgiven the person and moved on. When the person forgives you, move on.

Sympathy – Display Your Social Emotions

Sympathy is a powerful “social emotion”. It is an expression of pain felt by the person you hurt. Social emotions create cooperation and understanding. We do not learn in school how to feel another person’s pain. We have innate social emotions that make us feel, behave, and act in a way that complies with social codes.

Remorse, embarrassment, and guilt are important emotions to display in your verbal and nonverbal communication when giving an apology.

Remorse, embarrassment, and guilt are important emotions to display in your verbal and nonverbal communication when giving an apology. A guilty individual showing remorse is more likely to give a successful apology than someone who hides social emotions.

Display sorrow for your actions. Communicate sympathy to show you understand the person’s pain and your mistakes. If you want, you can go one step further than sympathy by showing empathy. Try hard to experience what the person feels. (See here for a more detailed discussion on sympathy versus empathy.) The pain connects the two of you to build understanding and harmony.

Share the person’s pain by reflecting your feelings about the mistake with something as simple as:

• “I’m sorry I lied to you. I feel guilty that I’ve let you down.”
• “Having scratched the car, I feel ashamed that something so careless will hurt our finances.”
• “I feel I have let you down and hurt our relationship by yelling at you.”

A common misunderstanding with sympathy is you focus on yourself, diverting attention from the hurt person. Sympathy shows the person you also suffer from your blunder. The person will be more understanding and willing to discuss their feelings because you expressed yours. The person may even be happy to receive this bit of secret revenge. If someone hurts us, we get a little kick of happiness seeing them also suffer from their actions.

Review What Happened

If an apology failed, do not take it personally. Failure is a result, not a person. If your apology failed and you are certain you successfully applied all these tips, try alternative forms of apologizing, such as writing an apology or getting someone else to apologize for you. Do not forget that letting time pass could make your apology a success.

On the other hand, if your apology was successful, congratulations! Be grateful for the person’s forgiveness and a second chance. Learn from your mistake and move on.

Do not dwell on the past. You have a great future ahead of you. Make use of it by putting your attention on what you can do this very moment to improve the relationship. You are now ready to complete emotional healing and freedom with forgiveness.

Links to all four parts of this course, “Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain: A Four Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom”:

1. The Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. How to Forgive and Be Forgiven – The Art of Forgiveness

The second part of this course reveals the common barriers, problems, and mistakes you face when you apologize and ask for forgiveness. Learning the correct actions and methods to apologize is not enough. It helps your understanding and success if you also know what not to do.

You are also going to discover something called a “non-apology apology”. That is no typo. You have heard a non-apology apology given by a politician. You likely have used this poor habit to escape a situation where you wanted to avoid an apology.

Barriers to Apologizing

You know how important apologizing is after reading the first part of the course, but let’s assume you still cannot bring yourself to apologize. The benefits of apologizing have not built enough reason for you to pursue the pleasure and avoid the pain of an apology. Maybe you are experiencing excessive workloads and stress. Maybe you don’t have the courage to confront the person face-to-face. If this is the case, I encourage you to build your confidence and throw away your pride. You will be glad you did.

As explained in part one, we often avoid an apology because of fear. The primary fear I think people have when apologizing is the idea that apologizing puts down your protective shield, which leaves you vulnerable for an attack by the other person. You fear the ramifications of your actions. People with this fear think the problem is best left in the dark because an apology puts the problem under a light to amplify the issue.

Part of this fear may actually be real because the topic you should discuss could be bottled inside of you and your would-be conversational partner. An apology could open a bottle of soft drink. Depending on the severity each of you have been shaken, a lot of fizz could spurt out. Anger, confrontation, and frustration will shoot forth when either of you are shaken up and previously unopened to the other person.

An apology could open a bottle of soft drink. Depending on the severity each of you have been shaken, a lot of fizz could spurt forth.

Be humble, calm, and lose a self-centered approach to control this fear. If the fear is minor, you simply tell the person your fear and why you have it before giving your apology. That itself can open up communication.

When you apologize, it helps to remember that being scared of confrontation with the person comes from wanting to protect yourself. You fear responsibility for your actions. However, don’t expect the person to treat you like an angel. After all, you screwed up otherwise an apology would be unnecessary.

Another likely barrier to you apologizing is a fear that it signals weakness. You think the person receives power over you. “I’m better than you! I win! You apologized!” Yeah right. A failure to apologize communicates to yourself that you are weak because there is an imbalance between your courage and your ego.

When you admit a mistake and ask to be forgiven, your self-centeredness lowers, your courage rises, and balance exists with you and the other person. Weakness and vulnerability is a misnomer about apologizing. “It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity,” said Stephen Covey, author of the bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. “A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.”

Your goal in apologizing is not to keep your pride alive or to let the other person “win”. Aim to develop a good relationship. There is no winners or losers. The two of you play on the same team and must work together towards a quality relationship.

The Most Common Mistake: A Non-Apology Apology

We are taught early in life to say “please” and “thank you” to satisfy parents. Most of us never understood the full intent behind gratitude. At the same time, we are taught to apologize by saying, “I’m sorry” because our parents made us. We miss the true reason for an apology.

From a young age we continue to shy away from true apologies by using a bad habit called a non-apology apology. A non-apology apology is a forced apology to the offended person, because it’s the right thing to do, without any realization or belief about one’s mistake. It’s an extension of the forced apology our parents made us give when we were young – except we say the non-apology apology to please the other person.

For examples of non-apologies, look no further than politicians. These adorable people are filled with this poor apology. One example is Bill Clinton’s remarks regarding the Lewinsky scandal. President Clinton confessed his relationship with Lewinsky was “wrong”, but failed to experience guilt. It was said about his talk that Clinton aimed to protect what he had done. We see Clinton detached from his sorrow when he said, “It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: first and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people.”

Another non-apology I came across was in the NFL. Detroit Lion’s president Matt Millen used an inappropriate term for gays when he confronted a fellow NFL player. “He made an inappropriate remark,” said Millen, “and I reacted inappropriately. I said something I shouldn’t have, which was wrong, and I apologize for that. And I apologize to anybody that I offended with that remark.” That is filled with non-apology apologies.

Another example I found of many was Pierre Boivin, Montreal Canadiens’ President, when he apologized for fans booing the American national anthem. Boivin said, “We apologize to anyone who may have been offended by this incident.”

It is a growing trend to say sorry on the condition you hurt someone – instead of admitting your mistake regardless of someone’s pain that compels you to apologize. The non-apology apology requires someone to be hurt and implies offended people are partially to blame for their reaction. Some more examples:

• “I’m sorry for not mowing the lawn even though it does not require cutting.”
• “I apologize if I hurt anyone.”
• “Please take my apology if you were offended by what I said.”
• Jim Buzinski over at Out Sports is trying to discourage the non-apology apology. He has plenty of good examples of this mistake in his article, Apology Not Accepted.

To show the delicacy of apologizing, look at this apology: “I’m sorry I lied to you. I feel guilty that I’ve let you down.” All you do is insert an “if” into the first sentence (“I’m sorry if I lied to you”) to destroy a good apology with a non-apology apology.

A non-apology apology is said to please the hurt person to keep them quiet while protecting yourself. It puts the onus on those we upset by implying the victim is wrong. There is no remorse and sorrow. Guilt and responsibility is absent in a non-apology apology.

An awareness of these common barriers and mistakes will have you ready to successfully apologize. Knowing what not to do will guide you with what to do.

You are now ready to improve your relationship by learning how to correctly apologize to heal the damage that set the two of you apart.

Links to all four parts of this course, “Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain: A Four Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom”:

1. The Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. How to Forgive and Be Forgiven – The Art of Forgiveness

To begin the course, what is your reaction to learning about apologizing and forgiveness? Take a few seconds to think about it.

You probably feel neutral and unexcited learning about apologizing and forgiveness like most people. You assume a shallow understanding of a powerfully deep topic. A closed mind literally steals your ability to grasp new information to change your life.

Why do people avoid learning about apologizing when it has tremendous benefits? People think like this for three reasons:

1. They think they know how to apologize. Just like the many people who have yet to start learning effective communication skills, so are these people with apologizing. They think they have the necessary skills, but in reality their thoughts blind themselves from opportunities to improve their lives and relationships. When you say you know what is right, you use the number one technique to destroy learning: ignorance. You close your mind because it is too full to accommodate further information.
2. They think it is irrelevant. These people think apologizing is not worth it and a waste of time to learn.
3. They are too lazy. These people cannot be bothered to learn. Hopefully, you don’t fit in this category. But if you do, there is nothing I can do about it. It is your choice and your life. Don’t blame other people for the events in your life because of your decision to avoid responsibility for who you become.

These excuses to avoid emotional healing are sadly limiting because we always make mistakes. Mistake after mistake. It doesn’t stop. I’m not only talking about physical accidents, but mistakes we make with our relationships. We say things that hurt others. We can be ignorant in loving our family. We can be emotionally blind to those in need.

You Have Two Decisions Make

Take a momentary leap of faith to expand your awareness and grasp the powers of apologizing and forgiveness to free yourself from mistakes and pain. Accept a level of awareness and openness to change. Having done this, you have two decisions to make in dealing with your mistakes.

A successful apology is a radical movement from pain to empowerment.

First, you need reduction. You will never eliminate mistakes, but you can reduce the number by learning more about yourself and developing your communication like you’re doing with my newsletter, social skills blog, and this course. Characters in Soap Operas are the worst role models to follow to improve your communication because the characters continue to screw up, fight, make up, and repeat the process (it is drama after all). Communicate more effectively to avoid relationship blunders that create emotional pain.

Second, you need to cope. You will always make mistakes that hurt people. Learn to live with your mistakes as they will always exist. Coping can be ignorance or passive acceptance, but for our purpose it is learning to better manage ourselves with inevitable events.

This course focuses on the coping component of emotional healing because the first decision of reduction is an ongoing process achieved through continual learning. A successful apology is not just saying “sorry” – it is a radical movement from pain to empowerment.

What Happens When You Fail to Apologize

A large barrier faces each of us in emotional healing: the difficulty of an apology. We get ensnared in thoughts about ourselves by holding onto pride. We can be selfish and not willing to admit our most obvious mistakes. Pride eats away at us as we argue or, at the other end of the continuum, ignore the mistake to defend even an obvious wrongdoing. Pride ensnares us in its cage of lies as we defend our self-centered minds, ignoring guilt that would restore harmony.

I have been there. I had too much pride and selfishness to apologize to a loved one I hurt. When I did want to apologize, I couldn’t bring myself to face the person. The result was a hurt relationship and less happiness for me because I ignored the guilt that could have helped me apologize, seek forgiveness, and get emotional restoration.

Pride ensnares us in its cage of lies as we defend our self-centered minds.

In shifting the focus on apologizing away from you, what does avoiding an apology do to other people? They feel hurt that you are unwilling to communicate your mistake. They lose trust in you as you hide behind your mistake. They become angry towards you, wondering why you will not tell them the truth. They may begin to counter your lack of apologies by not apologizing themselves as the relationship goes downhill with the two of you caught in a power struggle.

Communicate your mistakes. Show your guilt. Tell the person how bad you feel. A mistake you make is like a scratch on the skin. By not apologizing you deepen the wound and rub salt into it. Stop hurting the other person and yourself, and learn to apologize. There is real power in apologizing and emotional healing.

9 Powerful Benefits in Apologizing

If you feel you have little reason to start apologizing already, here are more reasons and the amazing power of apologizing:

1. The healing process begins when you apologize. This is the most powerful benefit of apologizing. People hold grudges and resentment against those who fail to apologize and admit their mistakes. By apologizing, you put yourself on the same wavelength as those hurt by your mistakes. You see the wrongdoing they see in you. Their resentment diminishes as they become more capable of moving on and freeing themselves from the past.
2. While emotional healing in other people can be initiated from apologizing, it can also start self-healing. The next time you apologize, note how free it feels to admit your wrongdoing. It is liberating to free yourself from guilt that would plague you for days, weeks, and sometimes years. Don’t be a person whose past is a burden until the day you die.
3. People are more likely to follow your actions when you admit your mistakes and reveal your weaknesses. Their courage builds to practice the power of an apology. They see it is the better choice to follow. Apologizing produces guilt in people for the better. They may become aware of their mistake, feel safe, then apologize.
4. We are flawed. If we were cars, we would breakdown every 50 miles. Mistakes are inevitable regardless of your intentions to do good. Apologies are necessary to balance your life.
5. If someone hurts you, it is justice to have them apologize to you. For some reason this is not the case when we hurt someone. The hurting person desires your sympathy as much as you desire their sympathy when they hurt you.
6. Apologizing gives back what you took. You restore the victim’s feeling of worthiness and self-esteem. They no longer feel burdened nor responsible for your mistake. This benefit of apologizing is especially true in children.
7. By having complete responsibility for your actions, you possess an enormous amount of self-control. You are no longer a victim of others. You stop blaming people for what you can control. You become your own person. You create your own destiny.
8. A sincere apology shows effort in a relationship. It shows you care for the person. That’s an entire different approach to avoiding mistakes in an attempt to “secretly get by”. By not apologizing you sweep dirt under a rug. An avoided problem is likely to reappear and bite you when you least expect it at the worst possible time.
9. You build courage and become a confident person. When apologizing and asking for forgiveness, you rise above the destructive compulsion to avoid remorse. You no longer cover your behavior; you bring your behavior into the light. Tough conversations take courage! Your new-found courage will roll into other areas of your life as you begin to address difficult issues you avoided in the past.

Who would have thought there is this many benefits in apologizing! In fact, there is a lot more power in emotional healing and freeing yourself from the past. Read the rest of this free course to receive the many powers of apologizing.

Links to all four parts of this course, “Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain: A Four Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom”:

1. The Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. How to Forgive and Be Forgiven – The Art of Forgiveness