Positive Intention

This is one of my favourite NLP concepts, especially in communication, where it can have a profound impact in terms of understanding, respect and compassion. So what is positive intention? It’s best demonstrated with an example.

Last week I gave my Dad a call to see how he was doing. He’s a warm person and takes his fatherly responsibility very seriously – he always goes through a list of questions to find out I am well and happy. This time however he was distant and didn’t want to talk to me. So I left it there. I applied the notion of positive intention to his behaviour - he was trying to achieve something positive through his behaviour of not wanting to speak with me, even though I didn’t know what that was. I left the matter alone and continued with my day, instead of running different scenarios in my mind of what I may or may not have done for him to be like that or how I was now going to respond to him because of his behaviour. In the evening he called back – this time his usual self, warm, caring; needing to know all was well with me. He also said he couldn’t talk earlier because he was at someone’s house when I had called and the family were present there so he didn’t feel comfortable.

To me positive intention is suspending judgment; it’s leaving the space free for further information. Like when a driver overtakes aggressively, it’s kinder on both of us for me to think there is some positive intention as to why they are doing what they’re doing, may be they are running late for an important appointment, perhaps there’s a sick child or relative at home or it’s their way of coping with stress - whatever – focusing on the positive intention keeps me relaxed, positive and stable.