By: Natasha Archary
Wouldn’t it be easier if every one came with a personal instruction manual? How much easier would that make communicating your needs and wants, things that please you and those you disapprove of?
Imagine how much simpler it would make the early stages of dating. For one, it would element that awkward initial talking stage where people ask you what your favourite colour is.
Cringe!
Sending someone who is interested in getting to know you a link to your personal instruction manual which they can peruse at their own leisure sounds convenient doesn’t it?
Or you can have printed copies made which you can hand out to your loved ones so they know how to manoeuvre around you when you’re having a difficult day.
Also read: Feel Good: Dealing with difficult people in your life
Communicating yourself to others
When you buy a new product and you need to familiarise yourself with the way it works, you read the user manual.
You learn how to care for, get the best out of the product and the manual provides other basic instructions. In the same way, a personal manual provides people with a general overview of who you are, what makes you thrive, how you deal with conflict, or celebrate your passions.
Research also suggests that a personal manual can help establish psychological safety.
In her seminal paper about psychological safety at work, organisational behavioural scientist Amy Edmondson found that companies with high psychological safety—which she defined as the “shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking”—performed and learned better.
With a manual, people will know what your boundaries are, where and how to meet you halfway and understand your response to certain situations in a healthier way.
What a personal instruction manual should include
- My style
- What I value
- What I don’t have patience for
- How to best communicate with me
- How to help me
- What people misunderstand about me
- My love language
- Pet peeves
- Dealbreakers
- Code you subscribe to eg. if honesty is important to you
Personal manuals can be used for every sphere of your life, whether at work, with friends, family and in a relationship.
Also read: Kaya Drive: Constructive criticism vs personal attack?


