Negotiate with yourself; it may be good for you

I’m reading Chris Voss’s book “Never split the difference,” a real eye-opener. 

You may ask why I am reading it, and I’ll say it’s a question of timing. I started it once and stopped for something else that took its place, but now, I’m devouring it every spare second I get. 

Timing is a crucial element in negotiation. I realize everything I’m learning from that book I could use on myself to get from where I am to where I want to be. 

There are some distinctions in that book that can be useful in negotiating with yourself.

Labeling and accusation audits

Labeling, for example – naming the emotion underneath your behavior releases you to look at it and see what motivates you to act in a certain way. Then you can possibly choose to change the underlying emotion and your behavior.

By labeling your fears, for example, you diffuse their power… As Chris Voss says: “The faster you interrupt the action in the amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.”

List the bad things your inner voice says about you and look at them before you act or hear them from anyone else. “Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root,” says Voss. This is easier said than done when it comes to ourselves. Still, if we’re courageous and aware enough to look at the mirror and make an accusation audit for ourselves, we may also be able to treat our poor behaviors with humor and change them.

Negotiate with yourself “instead of denying or ignoring emotions, good negotiators identify and influence them… emotions aren’t the obstacles, they are the means”.

Most of all, I think you have to be tactically empathetic with yourself. “Negotiating as if your life depended on it,” I think this book’s subheading should be taken literally.

Check that book out.