Avoid an assumption. It might lead to a howler of a mistake
Me: “Hello, is that Annette?”
My unfortunate partner in conversation: “No it’s Adrian.”
Boy, did I feel a complete fool, asking a man if he was a woman!
No matter how long I’ve been involed with lead generation, the mistakes still creep in. I still make rubbish assumptions and presumptions.
Assumptive thinking #
At the wider level of assumptive thinking, psychiatrist Dr. Marcia Sirota thinks that it’s part of human nature to base our understanding of other people and the world, not just on the facts we observe but to a greater or lesser extent on what what’s going on inside us, psychologically.
Instead of basing our understanding of people and events on what we observe and what we know for a fact, we often prefer to make judgments based on our emotions, beliefs, expectations and wishes.
We too easily confuse these psychological mechanisms with reality, and the assumptions that spring from them become the basis of our own version of “reality,” even though it’s not actually real.
We don’t recognise just how much our inner world is colouring the way we see and understand our outer world, and how it distorts things for us. When making assumptions becomes a habit, we are less and less grounded in reality and more and more prone to creating problems for ourselves and others.
So, how to we stop making so many assumptions and start basing our understanding of people and the world on more tangible facts?
Pausing to help us through #
We simply pause as we’re jumping to our conclusions and ask ourselves, “How do I know this?”
If the answer to that question is anything other than “I learned it through observing the evidence or through obtaining factual information,” then we’re at risk of making an incorrect assumption.
Thank you, Marcia. I am now set and ready to go 😊
“Before you assume, try this crazy method called asking.” – A great quote from an unknown genius.
In my case, though, I had asked the wrong question.
Thank you for reading.
