I finished reading a book Four Agreements which I totally recommend. It is a great book about bringing happiness into your life. Here is my interpretation of those agreements.
1. Do your best. It is funny when I ask people do they do their best each day they often start off with an excuse. When I think about doing my best, it is my best under the circumstances. So if I am sick, I will probably not perform to my optimal level but I can still do my best under those circumstances. At the end of the day I ask myself, Did I do my best today? I try to phrase the question so that doing my best is up to me. I have been struggling with this one but am improving each day.
2. Do not assume. Whenever I mention this you get the assume joke. What I have realized however since I have taken the agreement not to assume is how often I did assume. That someone sends you an e-mail I wonder how can they think that. Or if someone does not return an e-mail are they mad at me? Now instead of assuming I will seek the person out or just not make any judgement at all. One of my friends is deciding on taking a position and they were being influenced by what their friends would think about it. My advice was do not assume what they will think just do what you think is best for you and your company. While I will sometimes assume things I am getting good at catching myself and then stopping.
3. Do not take things personally. This is something that has really helped me. When I catch myself taking something personally and I let it go, I feel the tension leaving my body. It is an awesome feeling and also make me realize how many things I have taken personally in the past. I see criticism now as trying to be helpful, their are no such things as personal attacks because I just do not see them that way. I will not let someone who does not really know me or care about me decide how I feel.
4. Impeccable with your word. This is about not spreading gossip about people. It amazes me how fast bad things get around and how often that leads into problems of people assuming or taking things personally. I know recently I was very upset with what I viewed as wasted paperwork. I probably told twenty people about it twenty times. How did that help? All it does is spread bad will. Now I just mumble to myself to be impeccable with my word. If someone or something bothers me go right to the source and straighten it out.
So far these four agreements have worked for me. If you get a chance pick up the book and as always would love to hear your thoughts.
I like these four agreements. I agree completely with number 1, although I think sometimes doing your best may come in a different form other than just working. Rather, it may mean resting so that you get better faster, even though that does not seem like you're doing as much as you can.
ReplyDeleteConcerning numbers 2 and 3, I think both issues can arise from miscommunication. I personally like to think of communication as the sharing of thoughts, and thus talking or texting are both imperfect forms of communication. That is, when you try to share your thoughts, they will not always (or even often) be perceived exactly as you intended. With this in mind, I think sometimes when we assume or take things personally, it is because we misunderstand another's words. We might think they're being hurtful, when they may not think that at all. Or, a message might be misunderstood to be very angry, when in fact the person behind it has no such feelings at all.
Going off of this idea that sharing thoughts is difficult, I think this is what makes teaching such a difficult job. Teachers must impart completely new knowledge to their students, but miscommunication will always be hindering it. That said, I think to get the most out of education, you have to do assignments as the teacher intends them to be done, and to think about what they are trying to teach through them.
My last thought on miscommunication is that when you need to solve a problem with someone, or multiple someones, it is best to talk it out face to face. In person, you get a lot more feedback than by messaging, such as tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, etc. which make it easier to understand a persons' thoughts. If you just message them, you lose out on all of this valuable information. And, even worse, if you try to have someone talk for you, then there will be a double loss from the previously mentioned miscommunication (which I think is what happened when parents spoke at the renovation talk in the place of their children). In short, if possible, solve any personal issues in person.
Finally, my thoughts on 4 are that it feels nice to hold oneself to very high standards. I do my best to never cheat or take shortcuts on my work (following the idea of completing assignments as the teacher intends them to be completed), and taking responsibility for when I don't. I also try to be as honest as possible, so that miscommunication is minimized, and so rumors can be dissipated or sorted out quickly.
Overall, if this were an essay, and I had a conclusion to come to, it would be that being aware that other people's perspectives can be radically different from one's own and recognizing the implications of this can be very beneficial.
Oh, and something I forgot to add (read this after the very long first part of my response) is that when speaking and communicating your ideas, it is also good to recognize how your audience may perceive your words. If the response differs from what you expect (for example someone gets offended by something you thought was a compliment) you should think of why this issues happened and gain a new insight from it.
ReplyDeletethank for taking the time to give such a thoughtful and reflective response. I agree with you that miscommunication is a problem. I have seen people get upset about things that I think they have taken out of context. The cheating part of your response is a topic for a different day
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