Habit #5 – Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

Many times, people cannot understand why nobody seems to understand them. Also, they cannot understand why the opinions of other people are not the same as theirs. Meanwhile, those other people are saying the same thing about you.

We all live under different circumstances. Different things happen to different people all the time, and these things form our opinions in different directions, little by little.

It has been said not to judge other people until you have walked a mile in their shoes. If you could do that, you might find that if you were faced with the same circumstances that they were faced with, you might also have some of the same opinions they do.

For example, you might wonder why the new kid in school is so unsociable. Unless you try to understand, you might never know that the kid had just lost a family member in a car crash, or some other unfortunate event has affected them.

Emotions can be just like a bank account. The bank account gets stronger with deposits, and weaker by withdrawals. Whenever you say or do something nice for someone, you are making a deposit into their emotional bank account. If that account is strong enough, it will be able to survive a few of your mistakes (withdrawals), but if that account is weak, one more withdrawal might empty it. At that point you have lost a friend. Always think of ways to make everyone’s emotional bank account stronger and stronger, so it will be able to survive occasional withdrawals, because they will sometimes happen.

Nobody is perfect, everyone makes occasional mistakes. You can choose to look for the good in people, or look for the bad, because they are both there.

Give people a break. If you are always catching people doing something wrong, you may be making too many withdrawals. Instead catch them doing something right, and compliment them for it. That’s a deposit!

If you want to be understood, do you think your chances would be better with a person having a weak emotional bank account, or a person having a stronger one?

Think of receiving understanding from others, or respect, compliments, kindness, favors, etc. as golden eggs from a golden goose. If you do or say something harmful, you may be killing the goose, and that means you will not be getting any more of these golden eggs.

That is why you must be very careful about how you say things. Is it better to tell a person "you messed up" or "I see an opportunity for improvement"? Is it better to say "You look like the first day of spring", or "You look like the last day of a long hard winter"? How about "When I gaze into your eyes, the hands of time stand still", or "You’ve got a face that could stop a clock"?