Absolute comments suck.
“You are egoistic”.
“You are lazy”.
“You are impulsive”.
I tend to take them personally.
Get defensive.
And close up.
They make me question what I am good at.
Lead to self doubt.
And rumination.
A person has recently suggested a very simple framework to deal with them.
To decompose the comments.
Put them in relative terms.
And quickly move forward.
It is in three steps.
Which I quickly explain below.
Let’s assume someone says:
“You are egoistic”.
The process would look like this:
1. Put it in context
Comments typically refer to a certain situation, not to the totality of a person.
And are triggered by specific circumstances.
No one is totally (or always) good or bad, egoist or altruist, positive or negative.
Then, the first step is to consider in which specific instance you have been defined as an egoist.
What was the interaction like? Were you being compared to others? Was the other person calm or agitated?
Go beyond the initial absolute formulation. Rethink at the event. And, eventually, ask for clarifications.
This helps to relieve some of the initial pressure and limit defensive “how dare you?”-like behaviours.
2. Give it a positive definition
People understand different things for the same words.
It is then useful to define the concept in a positive way. How? Simply by avoiding negations in the formulation.
For instance, you can define egoist as someone:
“Doing things with no care for the interest of others”.
This formulation sounds quite judgemental.
While an alternative, more balanced, definition could be:
“Putting yourself first”
Giving the word a positive definition can remove the potential judgment implicit in it. And highlight that there might even be circumstances in which being egoistic is good and self-serving.
3. Assess the specific case
The last step is to finally take the feedback and figure out what it means for us.
Understand it, accept it or reject it. And move forward.
Are you really being egoistic (= putting yourself first) in this specific situation? Is it good or bad? What can you learn about yourself from this?
Maybe putting yourself first is allowing you to take care of your physical needs, to take a needed break, before helping others is even possible. Or maybe you could have really been more attentive to others’ needs.
Both statements can be true and lead to different conclusions.
In three steps, it is possible to turn absolute comments, often a bit rude, into an opportunity for constrictive feedback.
Avoid to take them personally1.
And improve self awareness.
Consider trying this next time you’re being upset by someone else’s comment.
Might quickly move you away from self doubt and to the next, more important thing.
Have a good, non-egoistic journey,
— Livio
26/10/2022
I have also written about the tendency to take rude behaviours personally (and how, in reality, “it is not about you”) in the article linked below.