I have often come across situations where someone might not have done something as requested. But then again looking at the whole situation I have also come to terms with the fact that maybe the “demand” I had was something I thought of as request. Making a request to someone to do something for us is just like giving them a choice to either say yes or a no. But if one does it KNOWING that the other person realizes that its YOUR needs that are being met and not theirs by your request things go a bit smoother.
For example to have someone clean up their room, its lot more clearer to say “Whenever I see your room like this my need to have a clean and proper house isn’t met, will you be willing to clean the room before the guests arrive?”
This way what we are doing is we are putting the other person on the spot by not being able to say “Your needs are met because room is clean” because you know that it isn’t they know that it isn’t the only thing that you took out of the conversation is the jugdemental attitude that we sometimes use with others.
So the simple tip to make a request to someone is to first realize that it’s YOU who has a need that needs to be met, and this has to come clearly forward to the other person, when that’s done. Use your own emotions such as saying “The heater is off” when you feel it’s cold, because If you say “Its so cold in your room”, the other person might say “No it isn’t it’s hot here”.
If you got what I mean, what I am trying to say is.. using facts in our conversation creates less and less chances for a “battle of words” and distance would just grow since a talk started with a judgemental tone most of the times ends up quite bad.
What about you? How do you make a request to someone? If you use judgemental words in your talks, will you change now that you have kind of understood how it impacts things?