Getting to Yes with Yourself: (and Other Worthy Opponents)

by William Ury

Feelings of dissatisfaction are the language that your needs use to communicate with you.

the ability to respond constructively to a situation facing us, treating it as ours to handle.

Self-responsibility without self-understanding can deteriorate into self-blame.

Taking responsibility for your life means owning your failures and faults as well as your successes and strengths.

Self-responsibility looks essentially forward, figuring out how to address the problem.

worst thing that ever happened to you or the best thing. You

decide.”

considerable control over our experiences.

we remain free in the end to give our experience the meaning that we choose.

others’ shortcomings must be considered their problem, not yours. Your challenge is how to respond.

less dependent on the other side to satisfy your needs.

The more we need another person to satisfy our needs, the more power that individual has over us, the more dependent and needy we are likely to behave.

If blaming essentially means giving away your power and thus saying no to yourself, taking responsibility means reclaiming your

power and thus saying yes to yourself.

fear of scarcity,

learn to appreciate the lessons that life brings you.

don’t offer advice, unless of course requested to do so. Just listen, stay focused on the present moment, and look for openings.

solidly anchored

Reframing

Forgiving those who have wronged us does not mean condoning or forgetting what they did. It means accepting what happened and freeing ourselves from its weight.

“The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Our bodies do not distinguish between real threats and imagined threats as they gear up for fight or flight, so in the great majority of situations, a little bit of perspective can go a long way in helping us let go of fear.

in life, we are destined to lose many things.

“do I not destroy my enemies when I turn them into my friends?”

If you feel more confident in your ability to make your own happiness, you will be less reactive to the other person’s offensive behavior.

interests and needs of their counterparts at the same time as looking after their own needs.

no bigger win than the win within. An