“Be curious, not judgmental.”

Walt Whitman

Do you ever catch yourself judging others for their behaviour? Maybe someone was late for an important meeting, or somebody was acting cold towards you.

You jump to conclusions… The person was late because they are lazy, or they don’t care about the meeting. The person acting cold is evil.

Usually these conclusions are totally irrational and self-centred around us. There could be a multitude of valid reasons why the person was late or acting cold.

Get curious

Instead of being judgmental, lean into your curiosity and give the person the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the late person had to deal with an emergency at home. Maybe the person who was acting cold had just received some bad news. It is most probably nothing to do with you.

Reach out

By reframing to be curious, you move into a more positive and supportive mindset. This allows you to be empathetic to the persons circumstances and able to build some rapport. Hopefully you can together move beyond the issue to a better place. In comparison, the judgemental mindset usually leads to a negative place where tensions rise and problems escalate.

Another reframe

“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

The above quote from Napoleon sounds a bit harsh at face value. Assuming incompetence? This is much better than assuming malice. 

For the purpose of productive relationships, I am interpreting “incompetence” not as lazy or useless (negative thinking), but rather as an inability to do something (could be positive, not necessarily negative). 

An example

I have a recent example from my life…

I sent a text message an old friend who I had not seen in awhile, asking if they would like to catch up for dinner soon.

I waited a week with no response.

At this point I could have started assuming malice – maybe they are ignoring me or don’t like me.

Instead, I assumed that they were probably really busy with something going on in their life and they would get back to me as soon as possible. I thought I would give it another week before checking in again.

Another week passed, and then he finally text back, “Sorry it’s been a crazy couple of weeks, I was involved in a car accident, but all good now. Let’s catch up this weekend.”

You can see how unproductive the negative thought patterns would have been. I was in a much better place to be empathetic and supportive to his situation because I had not been ruminating on his “malice”.

Reflection

Next time you find yourself in a situation where you feel someone has wronged you, try the following:

• Don’t assume malice. Stop the negative thought patterns.
• Get curious. What could really be going on? How could I help?

It’s not always about you.