 How many times have you witnessed a situation or heard part of a conversation and felt you knew exactly what it was all about? You may be right most of the time, but what happens in those situations where you are wrong? You have now made assumptions about the situation that are completely incorrect.
I will use a simple example to illustrate this point: One of your friends said that they would pick you up at your house at 2:00 in the afternoon to go to a movie. That time comes and they don’t show up. You try to call them and they don’t answer their phone. So you wait. It is now 2:15 and you may be getting mad because you are going to miss the movie. You keep calling them and they still don’t answer the phone. Most people’s first reaction is that they start thinking about out all the things that are wrong with the person: they are never on time, they are undependable, they could have called!
What if you get a call from them later that night? Do you answer the phone or are you still mad? What could they possibly say that would make what they did to you right? What if they told you that one of their family members was in a serious car accident and they rushed to the hospital to be with them? Are you still mad that they missed picking you up for the movie? You have probably let that anger go after hearing this serious situation happened to them.
Think about situations in your own life where you have made assumptions or found out you jumped to conclusions. In hindsight, you probably wish that you wouldn’t have done that and it may not have served you or the other person well. It can cause breakdowns in communication and ultimately lead to conflict in your relationships.
Hopefully what you are learning from these situations will help you think about it differently going forward. Before you make a snap judgment about what you think may be happening, just stop and think about what other things could be happening instead. Just try to see that there could be another explanation for what may be happening. Assume instead that they are coming from a good place and doing the best that they can. This is a mindset shift that will change how you see things that are happening around you in your personal and professional life. Continuing to do this over time will bring you to a more positive place and you will just automatically do this without thinking about it anymore.
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