Ask yourself two questions!
Last weekend my husband and I had a great plan. We had planned to go explore a picturesque town by the beach. We had reservations to a very nice restaurant by the water, and on our way back would visit a very interesting museum.
Right before breakfast, I browsed my Instagram feed and found a post from one of our friends. The post was about a topic on which we have different views.
My first reaction was to immediately make a very negative comment about it: “here we go again”, “why is this person sharing this with everybody?”, “it must be a way of feeling important”, “it never ceases to amaze me the way this person sees life”, “always playing the victim”. And so on, you see what I mean.
When I was opening my mouth to start saying all of these and other remarks, I stopped to think what impact those comments would have on our day. My husband doesn’t enjoy negative comments and, most of the time, they make him feel bad. So, I thought, why do I want to put a dark mark on this beautiful day even before it starts?
I gave it a lot of thought. I wondered why I cared to criticize this person. And in a very unproductive way, since this was not to be shared directly. Even if I were right on my comment, the person will never have the chance to change whatever was bothering me.
So I decided to keep my mouth shut and start thinking how to handle this situations in the future. I decided that I would ask myself two questions:
- How is this comment adding value?
- Is this comment getting me closer to meeting my goals?
The comment that I was about to make did not add any value. On the contrary, it would impact the mood for the day on a negative way. I realized that the only purpose of the comment was to state that I was right and the other person was wrong, like that somehow would make me morally superior. I think making comments like that is like “brain–candy”, somehow it makes you feel good, but it doesn’t serve any purpose. This realization felt embarrassing.
My second question relates to my habit of focusing on doing the things that are aligned with my vision and help my meet my goals. Unless my vision was to become a nasty, negative person, the comment was not aligned with it.
I therefore decided there and then that I would always ask myself these two questions next time I felt like criticizing someone. Notice that there is a big difference between this destructive comment, and constructive feedback. The latter passes the two-question test:
- It adds value since it’s made directly to the appropriate person, in a constructive way, so the person can learn something about himself or herself and decide to modify their behavior.
- Providing well-thought feedback or constructive criticism is one of the goals of leaders.
I have to say that it was a big learning for me. I did have to refrain myself from making any comment during the day. I have to report that we had a wonderful time, and I am very happy that I now have a plan to stop this nasty habit and become the person that I want to be.
