Replace WHAT with WHY
Replace judgmental "why" questions with neutral "how" and "what" questions. Shift the focus from blame to understanding in your daily language.
“WHY did you do that?!”
The person ASKING this wants to know a reason.
The person RECEIVING it hears mostly blame.
‘Why’ questions have judgment built in.
Try to ask ‘why’ in a neutral way. It’s really hard!
Instead, we can ask the same thing using ‘how’ and ‘what’ with a neutral tone.
Below are some examples.
Please emphasise the capitalised words in your head 🙂
From
to
“What contributed to this outcome?”
“WHY did YOU break it?!”
“What caused this to break?” or “How did this break?”
“WHY do YOU want to do it this way?!”
“What makes this work in your opinion?”
You signal that you are after someTHING, not someONE.
We all have the power to take some unnecessary edge off our daily language!
Good luck!