Passive communication is associated with detachment, indifference, and an overall sense of apathy for even the most compelling issues. Most people might think it’s a completely benign type of behavior. However, in reality, it can sometimes cause more harm than good in business and an individual’s well-being.
Passive communication impacts business and health in many ways. In the workplace, your motivational level, productivity, and sense of purpose may be affected. It may also affect your physical and mental health, causing you to harbor anxiety and elevate your risk for serious diseases.
This article will talk about the disadvantages of passive communication and how it can affect your performance at work and your interactions with your team by causing you to harbor feelings of dissatisfaction and resentment. We will also tap into how being a passive communicator can have an impact on your personal life and mental health. Let’s begin!
1. Passive Communication Fosters Feelings of Resentment
Passive communicators rarely share their feelings and ideas with their peers. As a result, they are often misunderstood and neglected since nobody really knows what they truly think and feel. This creates feelings of resentment and the urge to retaliate for the presumed wrongdoings.
Such disagreeable emotions can affect the way you carry out your tasks and interact with your team. You might start feeling uninspired about your work since you don’t feel that any of your efforts are appreciated anyway. You might also begin to draw back from your teammates since you feel that they don’t value you as a team player.
These negative emotions can take a toll on your health. Unexpressed and unbridled feelings of anger and resentment can increase your feelings of anxiety, and this is not ideal especially since work takes up a huge portion of your daily life. You may even start experiencing headaches and a spike in your blood pressure whenever you’re in the workplace.
Here are other ways that stress, anger, and anxiety may affect your physical well-being:
- Deterioration of blood vessels (due to the instability of blood pressure)
- Rapid heart rate
- Cardiovascular complications
- Hypertension
- Stroke
- Diabetes
- Sleep issues
- Digestive problems
- Chronic fatigue
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2. Passive Communication Can Demotivate You
If you fall into the cycle of consistently disregarding your own thoughts and feelings about different aspects of work, you might start feeling insignificant. You’ll begin to think that you’re a small fry and that your opinions and input don’t really matter. You may even start believing that your teammates think and feel the same way about you.
These unpleasant thoughts circling around in your head can make you suddenly feel demotivated and disinterested in work. If you’ve been consistent about delivering quality results, you might suddenly feel like getting the job done, no matter how haphazardly, is acceptable.
Feeling demotivated about work can derail your work-life balance. It can make you feel disoriented, confused, and directionless. You might also begin feeling the effects of toxic stress — a situation where you are constantly perturbed yet you can’t figure out how to escape from it or even just alter the conditions you’re in. Some people endure lack of sleep and a decrease in appetite when they’re struggling with demotivation at work.
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3. Passive Communication Can Make You Feel Overwhelmed
Passive communicators have a hard time saying “no” since they really do not want to cause any conflicts in the workplace. You might get commended for being a good team player and for always being willing to lend a hand, but saying “yes” all the time can also infringe on your boundaries.
Having too much on your plate can affect the quality of work you deliver. Since you have to focus on a multitude of tasks all at the same time, you might inadvertently be sacrificing your standards just so you can tick things off your list.
It can also derail your personal life and cause you to experience anxiety and mental health issues. Spending quality time with friends and family might be pushed aside. The quality and duration of your sleep could be disrupted, and lack of quality sleep is associated with cardiovascular complications and depression.
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4. Passive Communication Can Make You Lose Your Purpose
Having goals is crucial to finding a clear sense of direction and a strong motivation to keep pushing forward. Goals are what drive you to grow and develop in your personal life and career. They are what inspire you to go beyond your comfort zone and aim for success. If you’re a passive communicator, sticking to your goals can sometimes be tricky because you have the tendency to let other people dictate your actions and decisions.
When your sense of purpose suddenly becomes fuzzy and vague, you’ll start feeling as if you’re simply going through the motions in your daily life. At work, you accomplish your tasks just for the sake of getting them done so you can move on to the next. You lose the appetite to excel and would much rather sit on the sidelines and watch others shine.
This type of mindset can take a toll on your mental health. It can make you feel apprehensive, on edge, and miserable about your circumstances. It can make you feel as if you’re lost and you have no idea how to get back up on your feet. Nurturing these feelings will affect how you interact with your team and perform your roles in the organization.
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5. Passive Communication Can Lead to Low Productivity
Even if you have trouble saying “no” to your peers and you always end up biting off more than you can chew, the level of your productivity may be affected, especially when you start feeling uninspired in the workplace.
Having a lot of items on your to-do list doesn’t necessarily translate to high productivity. Sometimes, if your list isn’t realistic and feasible, efficiency takes a backseat and you end up with a lot of half-finished tasks. You start feeling unfulfilled about work and suddenly see your tasks as tedious and pointless rather than challenging and pivotal to the achievement of goals.
Feelings of discontent can make you doubt yourself and your abilities. If being a passive communicator already makes you feel unseen and unheard due to all the suppressed emotions, feeling dissatisfied about your job might make matters worse. Anxiety and depression might sink in, and these are issues that will crucially affect your overall well-being.
