Do you always think the best of people – or do you think the worst? It’s so easy to make assumptions and to find ourselves falling into a judgmental or critical frame of mind – both about people we know well (like family members) and about complete strangers.
So why worry about changing your thoughts? So long as you don’t go around being verbally or physically abusive towards others, what does it matter what you think of them?
The danger of letting yourself think angrily or negatively about others is that the thoughts tend to rebound on you: your internal voice will start to be more self-critical. Plus, your relationships will suffer; perhaps you won’t make contact with a potential new friend, just because you had a bad first impression, or you might find yourself unable to patch up a tricky relationship with a colleague.
To top it all off, you’re likely to feel a lot more stressed and unhappy if you believe that others are deliberately out to irritate you or to cause you grief.
Ask “What Else Could This Mean?”
In his post 5 Questions That Will Change Your Life, Tim Brownson suggests asking yourself “What Else Could This Mean?” He gives some examples, such as:
Your partner being late for a date may mean he hates you and doesn’t respect you, or it may mean he got stuck in traffic.
How often do you jump to conclusions about what someone’s behaviour means? Perhaps it’s a driver who you label “aggressive”, but who might be in a hurry due to circumstances that you have no knowledge of. Maybe a friend is being uncommunicative, responding to your attempts at conversation with mono-syllables: you could assume that they are being unreasonably moody – or you could wait patiently and see whether they open up about some problem or issue in their life that’s bothering them.
I’ve often felt aggrieved when a friend or relative has been snappy or rude – and have even responded in kind – only to find, later, that the situation was put into a completely different light by some circumstance which I knew nothing about.
If someone’s behaviour towards you seems rude, offensive or unkind, ask yourself “what else could this mean?” Perhaps they’ve suffered a recent bereavement; perhaps they’re ill, or under a lot of stress.
In a few cases, of course, people are simply inconsiderate: that guy making an obnoxiously loud phone call on a train, for instance. But you’ll find that your own internal reaction is much calmer if you can come up with a mitigating circumstance that explains the behaviour.
Recognize Your Own Subjectivity
We all grow up with a particular set of beliefs and ideas about the world. In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey calls these “scripts” – our ways of behaving that have been formed by social conditioning. You might also think of them as a “map” of the actual reality of the world.
Everyone’s scripts or map are different. You probably have a similar framework to your family, friends and peer group – but you’ll meet plenty of people who come at life from a very different angle.
This can create friction and conflict. Some examples might be:
- You prize involvement in your church or community organisation very highly – your partner doesn’t
- You turn up five minutes early for every appointment, but you have a friend who’s constantly running late
- You don’t think it’s a big deal if there’s a few dirty dishes in the kitchen, but your cleaning-obsessed housemate is constantly leaving notes telling you to wash up
- You’re naturally thrifty and frugal, but several of your acquaintances live paycheck to paycheck
It’s all too easy to start thinking negatively about others simply because they don’t have quite the same values or the same conditioning as us. I’m sure you can think of examples in your own relationships, when you’ve been critical of someone because they didn’t hold exactly the same values or priorities as you.
One of the biggest steps you can take towards thinking the best of others is to recognise that they’re operating on a slightly different system – and to understand that they might find your behaviour baffling, annoying or downright idiotic! Value the differences in your relationships, and value what makes the other person special. Perhaps it’s annoying that your friend is constantly late, but the flipside of this is that s/he is a laidback, spontaneous and kind person.
Do you find yourself feeling critical or judgmental towards others? How do you overcome these thoughts? How do you make sure your words, actions and attitude convey your desire to think the best of people and to understand their point of view?
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Great article!
I sent a tweet out about it on @positivepresent!
Thanks, much appreciated!
Valuing the difference in opinions or demeanor of your spouse of best friends is the only way to get as long with them. Just realizing that, they are who they are. Nothing can change them. Most people are who they are for life. So we should just accept them. But not let this stop us from growing.
I totally agree with this post. Of course, thinking the best of people has the added benefit that you become surrounded by great people whereas thinking negative thoughts about them leaves you surrounded by irritating, horrible people. I have really seen how this can be a matter of perspective and being positive about others can make us happier too.
That’s very true: the more we look for the negatives in something, the more negatives we’ll find — until we’re blind to the positives.
I have seen my attitude go from positive to negative within the last few years. I’m timid, I’m more argumentative. Making politics my new hobby has made me create divisions among people whom surround me and I’m making generalizations about those who don’t support my ideas. It’s ridiculous, I know. I need to take a full week, making a list of positive characteristics about my family members, co-workers, and other people I know. What else do you suggest?
A different hobby?
Try to recognise that no-one’s the “baddy” from their own point of view. Even if their political views are completely opposed to yours, they probably still have the same aims in mind: a better life for regular folk.
Also try looking for what you can learn from their position: there’s some good stuff in almost every philosophy or ideology.
It’s often the case that by doing work on ourselves: that is, our attitudes, questions, mindset, we will understand that people are just people. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they have no more plots against us than we have against them.
For me, a combination of two different practices helps keep negativity in check (while not abandoning reality):
–empathizing; asking myself: “how would I feel if I was reacted to in such a way?” This often prevents me from my hastiest (and often nastiest) reaction.
–clearly setting boundaries with people; being up-front an honest with them in an effort to say, “Hey there, I noticed your behaviour, and because of it I felt [insert negative emotion here]. Is this really what you intended? What’s going on?”
Ultimately, everyone has a bad day sometimes. But you don’t have to let their negativity affect your mood. A little emotional maturity goes a long way, particularly when dealing with strangers or people about which you know little.
Two great suggestions, thanks!
Wonderful article which is a great post for self development. I do read all those stuffs very frequently. This article remind me another article of James Rick Blog.
http://jamesrick.com/blog/category/self-improvement/
For a long time I used to think negatively of people… and was unhappy as a result. I thought it was naieve to think the best of people
Changing the mindset is tough and I am not there fully yet.
However thinking positively of people has been a very empowering experience. I keep better relationships and make new friends more easily.
Naveen
What steps did you take in order to end your pessimism towards people?
I really appreciate and agree with the points expressed over here. Thanks for such nice thoughts.
very good article picking up subjects of transactional analysis without mentioning a word about it. that’s the way it has to be distributed in order to not being be discarded too early. (just by thinking “okay, that’s the i’m ok, your ok stuff”)
i appreciated it very much, very well written!!!
Thanks Charles! I must confess I have almost no knowledge of transactional analysis (I’ve heard of it, especially the “I’m OK, you’re OK” principle) — though chances are a lot of the reading I’ve done and speakers I’ve heard may well have used aspects of it that I’ve subsumed into my own thinking!
Accepting people for who they are is challenging but certainly necessary. If we can’t learn to live with others we will be very lonely people. Knowing that others won’t be their absolute best at all times helps, no one is perfect after all.
[...] wrote about this further in her post about thinking the best of people. If someone’s behaviour towards you seems rude, offensive or unkind, ask yourself “what else [...]