I have had so many good reminders of this recently. I will ask my son to do things 4 times in 4 different ways and it still is not done and my mind automatically goes to being critical. What’s wrong with him? He doesn’t care! He doesn’t respect me. That comes up for me a lot. I start to take it personally and be critical of him as a person. This week, I also reflected on the very deep conversation I had with my parents over Thanksgiving. This conversation was about some extremely difficult parts of my upbringing. What allowed me to have that conversation in a good and wholesome way and without anger, was months of therapy and working on being curious instead of judgmental. It took years, and I got to a place where I really wanted to know their story and learn, not just be right and indignant about the way I saw it. That went so well, I thought I should take that approach with my son as well. I sent him a text at 10 PM, asking him to take out the recyclables he had promised to take out that day. He text back, Ok, but in the morning they were still there. I stopped myself from going my normal way of criticism and got curious. I wonder what was going on with him that he would say OK and still not do it. When I asked him, he stated that had responded OK because I asked him to respond to my texts, but that he was already in his PJ’s and it was raining so he decided to wait until the morning. Perfectly good explanation. It is the same at work. How many times do we assume the worst behind others errors, assuming they have a character flaw, but justify our own mistakes as subject of the environment. This is commonly called Fundamental Attribution Error. The more I work to be curious instead of critical, the better I feel, the fewer communication issues I have, and all my relationships improve dramatically. If you want a fun example of this, check out one of my favorite scenes from Tedd Lasso, Watch Our Video .
Whenever you find yourself being critical, become curious instead and see how your life improves.
Have a great weekend,
Art
