This past weekend I was reminded of the basics of living  and as usual, it brought me up short to stop, notice, take stock and decide what to do differently.

It was like a refrain from the past. One of my managers back in South Africa always used to say to me: ‘Back to basics, Avis, back to basics.  Get the basics right and the rest will follow.’ Whilst that was in relation to computer systems, I figure the same concept can be applied to that ‘system’ we call our life.

Back to the basics then, with apologies to those who have it all sorted.

Health:  Eat good quality food, drink more water, exercise more, get rest.
Food affects your sense of wellbeing and energy levels, so make sure it is good quality. The best food is food in its natural state, unrefined and unprocessed except for healthy home cooking.

Finances: Pay yourself first. 10% of your income, whether it is £10, £1,000,  £10 ,000.
If 10% is too much to start with, make it 5%. Get into the habit, automate it and don’t touch it.
Your goal is to accumulate a rainy day fund, 3 to 6 times your income and have it in a savings account that you don’t touch except if you absolutely HAVE to for rainy day events.

Family/Friends: Who do you spend time with? Do they drain your energy or do they energise you? Are you connecting with the people who are important to yo? The longer we leave it to connect, the harder it becomes. ‘Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path’, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Mind/Learning: What are you feeding your mind with? What are you reading and listening to?
A constant diet of soap operas, sensational news stories and the next scare is a recipe for fear, anxiety and depression. Marianne Williamson says all of the great spiritual and religious traditions recommend quiet time before you start your day.  And long ago Meister Eckhart said ‘If the only prayer you say in your entire life is thank you, that will be enough.’

Makes you think, doesn’t it? Gonna do something different?

So someone commented… ‘Your site is about difficult conversations, how to have those tough conversations, the one’s you’d rather not have for fear of the damage it can do, yet you seem to write about everything except that’.

Good point. How does what I blog about here relate to tough conversations?

Now I’ll do that annoying thing and answer the question with a question: How do YOU show up in a difficult conversation? Who are you during those crucial moments when a normal conversation crosses the line and becomes a tough one? What is a difficult conversation anyway?

Let’s start with this last question first. What is a difficult conversation, a crucial conversation, tough conversation, vital conversation, fierce conversation or challenging conversation?

Here are some indicators that you are facing a tough conversation:

• You feel uncomfortable, uneasy and or have some concern about having this conversation.
• You are unsure how to approach it or what to say.
• There may be several issues entangled and you don’t know where to start, which one to address.
• There is a difference of opinion or strong suspicion there will be conflict.
• There are strong emotions involved. You feel angry, sad, afraid, helpless, just thinking about it.
• It’s something that is important to you.
• Often there is baggage. You and this person or you and this situation have ‘a past’.

Examples of typical tough conversations are:

• Talking to your partner about his/her drinking/spending habits
• Talking to your teenager about his/her undesirable friends
• Talking to your manager about the way he treats you and other team members
• Talking to your grown up brothers and sisters about appropriate care for your elderly parent(s)
• Talking to an elderly parent about their deteriorating driving skills and what that means
• Asking a friend to repay you the money you lent him
• Having a conversation with someone who is psychotic
• Giving bad news

The list goes on….

In each of these examples, you’ll probably feel apprehensive about starting the conversation. You may have an idea how the other person may react and are worried about your own reaction when they do or say something that pushes your buttons.

So now we have a clear idea about what a difficult conversation is, let’s move on to the second question: Who ARE you when you find yourself facing a difficult conversation? Maybe this question is not very clear – so to clarify: How do you show up? How do you conduct yourself? Who are you ‘being’?

• Do you go into the conversation with the attitude ‘I am right and you are wrong!’ ?
• Do you go in to score a point or two? ‘I’ll show you!’
• Do you go in with ‘I know what I want, when I want it and NOTHING will change my mind?’
• Do you go in curious ‘I wonder what happened? I wonder what I am missing?’
• Do you go in respecting the other person and showing that respect throughout?

Actions speak louder than words. So you can say ‘I respect you and your opinion’ as much as you like and if your actions and behaviours do not show that, you may as well not have said it.

No matter how subtle, even a mental rolling of the eyes whilst you profess your respect for them and their cause, it will get picked up. The other person will know.

How DO you show up in a difficult conversation?

That brings me to the initial question. What has the stuff I have been blogging about have to do with difficult conversations? The answer is EVERYTHING. Several posts have been about who you are and how you show up in the world. And who you are being speaks loud and clear during those tough conversations. In my view it is the foundation and is a strong indicator for the outcome.

So what can you do? Set your intention, when things look like they’re going pear shaped, check if you are holding to your intention and if not, go back to it. Oh yes, this is a crucial moment. Because when your buttons get pushed, it is easy to lash out. Instead, take a deep breath or two. Take a break if you need to. Say something like ‘this conversation is not working right now. Let’s take a short break, collect our thoughts and resume in five minutes’.

Good luck! Let me know how this works for you.

 It is fascinating how the same quotes I marked up in pencil at the ripe old age of 18 still resonate with me. I am so grateful to the teacher who chose this book for me. I wonder if they ever realised the impact they would have on me through this book. You just never know when you say or do something that impacts someone profoundly. Yep, we all have this power, this influence. Awesome, is it not?

I wanted to do something similar in this post – pull together words of wisdom, inspiration and lessons learnt from various sources and especially those I consider my teachers.

Shakespeare: Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Dr Wayne Dyer: You are an angel having a human experience.

My Dad: ‘Alles met n TE by is nie goed nie, behalwe TEvrede’.

This is in Afrikaans and it basically means everything in moderation. A more literal translation is ‘everything preceded by ‘too’ is no good.’ E.g.; too good, too noisy, too big, too much.  

Byron Katie: There are 3 kinds of businesses: Yours, someone else’s and God’s business. You have control over your business. You have no control over God’s business, i.e., hurricanes, tornadoes, war. That leaves other people’s business. Let them take care of their business. If you’re over there with them taking care of their business, no one is taking care of you, so no wonder you will feel neglected, lonely and miserable.  I trust I am doing Byron Katie justice here – that’s how I understand it – it works for me.

Marianne Williamson: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Read the rest of that famous quote here.

Chinese Proverb: Hungry man wait long time for roast duck to fly into open mouth.

Mahatma Gandhi: Be the change you want to see in the world.

Henry David Thoreau: Our life is frittered away be detail… Simplify, simplify! And this advice for a simpler life was written more than 150 years ago. How much more now in a world of mobile phones, instant information and non-stop news?

Methinks that’s a good place to wrap this up. Plenty there to ponder… EnjoyJ

Someone asked me this question a while ago: ‘How do I get rid of the guilt?’

When amongst friends and family, I normally chirp ‘Don’t do guilt. Go on any trip except a guilt trip.’ This is not the sort of thing you want to hear when guilt is weighing you down and you are feeling paralyzed, numb and worthless.

So I went in search of answers. Here’s the best of what I found.

Decide To Let It Go. In his book Friendship with God, God tells Neale Donald Walsch ‘If you release guilt, guilt will release you.’ When Neale asks God how do you do that, God replies ‘By deciding to.’ So when you feel guilty ask ‘Is this who I want to be? What would be the most loving thing to do now?’  Then take it from there.

Question Your Beliefs. Beliefs are simply rules we live our lives by. Some of these we make up for ourselves, such as ‘I am a person of integrity, I never tell lies’. Other rules and norms of behaviour   we acquire along the way, typically from our parents, friends, religion, school, society and a host of other external influences. For example, you may have grown up and every Sunday, there would be a roast for lunch. It did not matter whether you went to your grandmother’s, aunt or uncle’s place, Sunday roast was sacred in your family, it was the done thing. And those that did not do Sunday roast were frowned upon. We seldom stop and question the validity of these rules or norms. Mostly we are not even aware of them – they are so deeply buried in our subconscious – they seeped in unawares.     

Lori Radun, a certified life coach and founder of the Momnificent! Mom Club, differentiates between VALID guilt and INVALID guilt.  

VALID guilt is when you feel bad because you broke one of your own rules, for example telling a lie when you live by the rule ‘never tell lies’.

INVALID guilt is when you feel bad because you broke a rule that you do not value or embrace, for instance when we allow others to impose rules upon us.  These include those rules that seeped into our subconscious as we were growing up.  For instance, you’re finally grown up, have your own place and you want to show it off to your family. A Sunday lunch suits everyone. Only thing is you’re lousy at cooking roasts and have discovered you’d be happy never to cook a roast. But the rule demands you should produce a Sunday roast. So you feel guilty because you don’t want to. You feel guilty because you haven’t mastered the art. You feel guilty because you keep putting off having them round because then they’d discover your guilty secret.  

To let go of the guilt, we need to understand what is important to us and we must be willing to stop the patterns that allow others to impose guilt on us.

You can read Lori’s tips for dealing with guilt here.

Thoroughly Examine The Situation: In their book The Twelve Week Miracle, Anna & Philip Bradbury describes a 5-step process for examining and learning from the situation that’s causing the guilt. You will need a journal for this process. I suspect you can use this process for any strong emotion.   

1.      Admit it. Be honest and clear about where you’re at with the situation.

2.      Get Grieving.  Talk to someone who will be impartial and give honest advice. Alternatively, pour it all out into your journal.

3.      Get underneath the Guilt. Explore the reasons why you feel sad and/or mad.

4.      Recall the breakthrough. Identify what is missing that, if you had it, will make the sad and/or mad disappear.  This could be a long list, e.g., health, friendship, job opportunities…

5.      Bringing the past back. This is about visualising what you had intended before the guilt happened. Refer to the list created in step 4. Decide which ones you want to create in your life and start doing just that.

The Twelve Week Miracle is also available from Amazon.

To sum up.  Guilt is an emotion that let’s you know there is something in your life that requires your attention. Give it your attention. Use the strategies mentioned here to explore, enquire, question. Determine what you need to do next, then do it.

Then let the guilt go.

You’ve done the work, you’ve got the message, you’re making changes. There is no reason to keep beating yourself up with it.

Stay aware and notice what happens the next time you feel guilty. Take a reading on the guilt. Is it more or less than before? Do the process again, then let the guilt go. It will get easier over time and depending on the situation, you may not ever feel guilty again, or just a small tinge. However it shows up, just question it as before and let it go.    

Guilt is an opportunity to practice forgiveness. Forgive yourself for whatever you have done. Forgive the other person(s), your parents, society, the situation, the unspoken rules that bring you face to face with guilt.

 From A Course of Miracles perspective, guilt is the ego’s way of keeping you in darkness – keeping you from who you really are and your own magnificence.

Use some of the methods here, journaling, prayer, apology, forgiveness – whatever works for you. Finally, I stand by ‘Don’t do guilt. Go on any trip except a guilt trip’. 

A long time ago I went to my then manager with the wisdom ‘Training does not teach you anything. All it does is show you new areas of incompetence!’

‘Are you telling me you don’t want to do anymore training?’ he enquired.

‘Of course not!’ I quipped, ‘ I’m just saying.’

What I had stumbled on and could not verbalise at the time was that training shows you where there is room for improvement. It raises awareness. After that, the responsibility is with you and it’s over to you to implement what you have learnt or go and find out how to close the gap the training highlighted.    

This is not just true of training. It can be said for any method whereby you become aware that there is a different way, possibly a better way, of doing the thing you are struggling with. Just noticing yourself that the way you are doing things are not getting the results you want and resolving to ‘find a better way’ can put you on a path of learning and discovery.  So what does this have to do with difficult conversations? Well, just making that decision, ‘I will find a better way’, ‘there must be a better way’, raises your awareness and the next time a difficult conversation comes along, you will more acutely be aware of how you say things and what you say. You may find some words on the tip of your tongue that you know will not help the situation, yet they just tumble out regardless. The thing is, you noticed. You were aware before these words uttered themselves seemingly of their own accord that it was not a great choice of words. So be it. Now go and do your homework.

What could you have said instead? How could you have done it differently? What results did you want? What did you get? What did you do – all the things you did and said – that contributed to the outcome.

So the next time you’re in a similar situation, perhaps some troublesome words will be there again, waiting to just roll off your tongue before you can stop them. Did you also notice that this time you nearly got them before they voiced themselves? Do your homework again, what worked, what did not and pretty soon you’ll have control over them and you will say the words you want to say instead of being held ransom by troublesome words with a mind of their own.

And all you have done is three things:

• You’ve noticed things aren’t working – awareness
• You’ve made a decision to find a better way – willingness
• You persisted with finding and implementing better options – responsibility

If this is all you do to improve the outcome of your difficult conversations, you will see progress.

That’s been my experience:  Cultivate awareness, willingness and responsibility and you will improve most anything you put your focus on.  

Give it a go… let me know how it works for you.

It’s been a while since I just wrote with no specific subject in mind. Just letting the words come – allowing – whatever wants to come, come.

It’s a process of trust. Trust that words WILL come. Trust that they will make sense. Trust that it will be meaningful. Trust that I’ll be a worthy ‘vessel’… because that is what I am when I surrender myself to this process. I am just being a carrier, facilitator, medium, instrument through which the words are being funnelled, broadcast, channelled. Yes, the words come through me, not from me. I simply allow that which animates you and me to get it’s message out to us both and everyone who reads this.

And what is it that animates you and me? Spirit? Life? Love? It is that which when it’s no longer there, makes the body a mere object – what we commonly call death – a topic mostly avoided in Western cultures. But I don’t want to talk about death today. I want to talk about spirit, life and love. That which animates us. That which makes us all part of the human family, part of humanity, that which makes us all One. Because at the level of humanity we are all one. We have the same fears, whether we recognise them or not. I am alone. I am not worthy. Who am I anyway? Why am I here? I am nothing.

Look again. I am NO THING. Yes, you are NO THING. You are that which animates you, by whatever name you want to call it. That means you are not your body, because the body is a ‘thing’, an object.

That brings me to some of the most beautiful and soul nourishing words I have ever heard. They are from ancient scriptures. Here’s how I remember it.

That which makes the mind think, but needs no mind to think, that alone is Spirit.

That which makes the tongue speak, but needs no tongue to speak, that alone is Spirit.

That which makes the eye see, but needs no eye to see, that alone is Spirit.

That which makes the ear hear, but needs no ear to hear, that alone is Spirit.

That which makes the life live, but needs no life to live, that alone is Spirit.

Treasure the spark in you. It whispers of your Spirit. The life it offers you, the love you are and are capable of. Without that, yes, without you, the world would be a poorer place.

May your Best Self be present each moment of the New Year.

My good friend says on their own, none of these tips will rock the boat too much, possibly just raise an eyebrow. However, if there is already baggage, that is, an elephant in the corner, topics too sensitive and painful to discuss, well… then… ouch! I asked him to have a read and give me his opinion. His reaction was painful to observe. It was like watching a knife plunged into his heart, turned again and again and then salt rubbed into the wound. Talk about hitting a nerve! A time of his life he did not want to be reminded of. I apologised profusely.

So here goes, 12 Top Tips to gather storm clouds and gaurantee a sure reaction, ranging from a raised eyebrow to someone spending a night on the couch to one hundred percent fallout. Be warned…

1. Refuse to talk.
When your partner suggests you have a talk, simply say NO and put a stake in the ground. Say something like ‘There is nothing to talk about’, ‘It’s not important’, ‘It won’t make a difference’,
’I don’t want to talk’. Of course, you can always say ‘Not now, another time’ and then when that time comes, put it off again.

2. Demand the discussion takes place NOW.
‘We have to talk about this NOW, not later, not in 5 minutes, NOW!!!’    

3. You can intensify Tip 2 by ensuring your partner is in a rush when you want to talk – on their way out to work, the dentist or some other engagement. Even better if they’re off to a very important appointment like a job interview.  Alternatively you can wait till they are in the throes of a task that requires intense concentration and focus.

4. Use imperatives like ALWAYS and NEVER.
‘You NEVER listen to me’.
‘You ALWAYS bawl your eyes out – just like a child, instead of talking like an adult’.
Oo…. double whammy there!

5. Wait till Saturday afternoon when he is into his sports, watching sport channels. Choose this time to confront him with the evidence of his misdemeanours.
Guys, you get the drift here… pick her favourite TV program or activity… Strictly Come Dancing comes to mind.

6. Pile it all on.
Remember when he got drunk all those years ago and forgot all about you? Substitute your own story here… Don’t leave anything out. Make sure you have a long list and work through it… from the top Baby. Oh! Have the list handy so you can keep adding to it. You don’t want to be leaving anything off next time!

7. Insist on being right. It’s your way or NO way!

8. Don’t listen.
Whatever he or she says, do not listen. Close your ears, mumble ba-humbug or other nonsense phrase. Hum a tune. Fiddle with your mobile phone. Turn up the volume on the TV, radio or music.

9. Revert to body language.
Roll your eyes. LOTS! Sigh meaningfully. Put your hands on your hips in a ‘just you dare’ pose. Purse your lips. Work out some of your own and develop your own favourites.

10. Keep saying the same phrase over and over again.
Every time your partner expects a response, just say the same thing. ‘Yes dear….’ ‘Yes dear…’  ‘Yes dear…’ or ‘You talking to me…?’  ‘You talking to me…?’

11. Ignore them.
Open the post. Look for a recipe. Surf the internet. Read the newspaper/magazine/book/email. Flip through the TV channels. Tidy up the room. Start looking for something – ‘Have you seen my socks’ or keys or diary?

12. Stare at them.
Watch them intently and follow them with your eyes. Don’t say a word. Don’t twitch a muscle. Just watch them intently. Breathe slowly and steadily. This will help you keep your cool and be calm. When they stop or run out of steam, say ‘Are you done? Good!’ Then carry on with whatever you were busy with before you were interrupted. If they start up again, just repeat the routine.

There you have it! 12 Top Tips to Raise your Partner’s Hackles and seriously undermine your relationship.

I would love to know what you think. Please add your tips and comments below.

So today I want to write about Trusting the Process and what to do when we get that feeling of being stuck. When you think to yourself ‘What do I do now? It feels like I am spinning my wheels. I push here, there, everywhere and nothing is taking me forward.’

Here are some ideas:

STOP!  Acknowledge where you are. Make room for Divine Timing.  God’s ‘clock’ and yours happen to be different. When the conditions are right, the right thing will happen. Not necessarily in the way you expected.  Your expectations of when and how things ought to happen may not be the way it works out. In fact, insisting on having it your way is much more likely to frustrate you and stress you out. That’s one sure way to virtually guarantee you will miss the answer to your questions. So let go and let God. Keep a soft eye. Trust the process.

STOP!  Acknowledge yourself: where you’ve been, what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished, your successes, your failures and the wisdom you gained along the way. Truly acknowledge your own AWESOMENESS.

Contemplate this passage from A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, then contemplate it some more.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

STOP!  A seedling, when it grows too fast, grows tall and lanky, collapses easily, needs constant propping up. It hardly ever bears fruit or flowers that truly represent its magnificence. It is easily overgrown by weeds and dies young. Give your seedling the space, the love and care and protection to emerge strong, in all its splendour, so it can bloom and bear fruit in bountiful abundance, again and again and again. Laying strong foundations will serve you well.

STOP!  Look at the eight or so major areas of your life: health and vitality, romance or significant other, personal development and growth, recreation including family and friends, physical environment, finances, career or work, emotional wellbeing.

Ask

• Where is your life unbalanced?
• Where do you need to spend more time and effort?
• What are you avoiding that will make all the difference if you address it?

Yes! That thought that just popped into your head, the one you pretended not to notice!

Find someone to help you work through that issue – a coach, a counsellor, a mentor. Doing ‘The Work’ by Byron Katie or ‘Radical Forgiveness’ by Colin Tipping, are also great places to start. It will help to work with someone you can trust and be totally open with. Someone who will respect who you are and what you represent without judging you or your actions.

That’s also a good attitude for you to adopt towards yourself. A position from where you can observe yourself dispassionately, acknowledge and appreciate yourself and stop the self attack.      

STOP!  Be patient. Rome was not built in a day. A Course Of Miracles says ‘Infinite patience produces instant results’ – What we really want is peace and if we hand over the issue to Spirit and detach from the outcome, peace is ours, instantly. The rest will show up in Divine Time.

The hardest work we will ever do is the work we do on ourselves. It’s also the most worthwhile work. The more we rid ourselves of our distorted perceptions, false blame and guilt, the more peaceful our lives will become. As we make peace with ourselves, we bring peace to the world.

So trust the process, enjoy the journey.

That’s all for now… I’ve got work to do… go practice what I preach…  

I heard a great tip this weekend to take the heat out of an escalating argument.  It ties in beautifully with the work I do, so I have a special appreciation for just how powerful it is.

Here goes…

When you and your partner find yourselves in a position where the discussion is getting heated and you are heading for that place where you will regret the next thing you say for a long time, call a halt.

That’s right. STOP when it looks like things are getting out of hand.  Then each one take a pen and paper,  go to your respective ‘corners’ and don’t come back until you have AT LEAST TEN reasons on that piece of paper of how YOU might have contributed to the situation!

Wow! Powerful! If you do this and pull it off, you will be amazed at the results you get.

Make no mistake. This is hard. You have to look at yourself OBJECTIVELY, like a fly on the wall, get HONEST with yourself and ADMIT all those little and not so little things YOU thought, said and did that contributed to propelling you to a point where you could so easily have lost it.

Several years ago I was preparing to deliver Crucial Conversations training. I was working through the training material on this very topic:  ‘How am I contributing to the problem’, when I had to break off to attend a meeting to review project proposals. My proposals were last in the queue and not the usual project. I expected to work hard to have them accepted. I did not expect to get mauled… but I am telling myself a story.  Let’s just say that afterwards the other meeting attendees offered condolences for the way the proposals were trashed and I was treated!

It took me all afternoon to get the irony. There I was feeling bruised and battered from that encounter, raging “How dare he!”, “What a jerk” whilst preparing a section on Master My Stories, one part of which  looks at “How am I contributing to the problem?” and “What am I pretending not to know?”

Let me tell you, I was suddenly not interested! But then I calmed down, got honest with myself and asked myself the question.

How DID I contribute?  

For a long time, nothing happened, nothing came to mind. Then slowly it dawned on me:
•    I resisted filling in a form to do with budgets.
•    When I did do it, I did it half-heartedly.
•    I could have asked for help, I did not.
•    I did not ‘warm him up’ for the projects. He did not know what these projects were about, why we had them, what problems they would solve, what benefits they would deliver. Yes it was all in the proposal, but I did not talk to him about it before hand.  He had no idea, came to it cold. I never ‘got my ducks in a row’ before the meeting.

It hurt – having to admit that! Frankly, it’s hurting to admit it here!

So yes, I know how hard it can be to ask yourself that question and come up with an answer. What comes up is often not pretty, in fact very much the opposite. I urge you to go with it. The sooner you bring it to the light, the sooner it will release its hold on you.

It’s a great tip:  STOP! Go to your respective ‘corners’ with pen and paper and come up with ten reasons how you contributed to the situation.

Here’s another tip:  It’s what you do before you do what you do that makes the difference.

I’ll say that again:  It’s WHAT you do, BEFORE you do what you do, that makes the difference.

What I mean by this is BEFORE you shout STOP in the middle of an argument, shove pen and paper in the hands of the other person and send them off to go write up ten reasons, take time to set this up as an alternative way of handling heated discussions. When all is calm and peaceful between you, propose this as an option. Then give it a go next time you have an opportunity.  See what happens. And if you like the result, do it again and again.

Go on, give it a go! Then come back here and tell us what happened.

Fatal Attribution Error. Well, that is what my mind comes up with whenever I think of the Fundamental Attribution Error. 

I can make a few attributions as to why the biased to ‘fatal’ instead of ‘fundamental’ – we’ll come to that. For now,  let’s just look at what it is, this Fundamental Attribution Error.

It’s the idea that as individuals, we tend to view our own behaviors within the context of our circumstances. However, when we look at the behaviors of others, we tend to overlook circumstances and attribute their behaviors to who they are as a person or to their character.

So what does this really mean? Simply that we let ourselves off the hook given circumstances, but are not so generous when it comes to others. Then we ‘lay into their character’, pass judgments, label and tend to attribute those as the only reason why they are behaving the way they do.  

Here’s an example. Say you are travelling on a local commuter train. The carriage is practically empty except for a man sitting in the isle opposite you. He looks dishevelled and his two young children are running through the carriage, making a noise and nuisance of themselves. You’re sitting there thinking ‘What a father! Look at the state of him. No wonder he can’t keep his children under control!’  Then you ask him, perhaps in a condescending sort of way, to control his children and he responds, ‘I’m really sorry. We’re all distracted and in a bit of shock. My wife, their mother just passed away.’

Ouch! Extreme case, maybe, but it makes the point that we don’t know what’s going on for others. The best we can do is assume.  Yet we have this tendency to behave as though we know exactly what they are thinking and why they are behaving the way they do.  

Now imagine you never asked him to control his children. You would never have learnt about his circumstances. You just might have gone on telling everyone you encountered after you got off the train your opinion of parents and their unruly children. And you may well have ended the day with a story of how your entire day was spoiled because of these unruly children and their dishevelled father.

That’s a lot of frustration, anger, helplessness – whatever feelings you experienced as a result – generated from an incident where you simply observed something and you came to a whole bunch of conclusions totally unaided (except of course for those kindly contributed by others when you told your tale). And these conclusions ruined your day!  

Yep, that’s the fundamental attribution error in action. Now perhaps you can see why I tend to get stuck on the word ‘fatal’ instead of ‘fundamental’ when I think of this phenomenon. It seems that whenever we give reign to this tendency, things take a turn for the worse.

‘My boss is micromanaging me. Why else would he check on me five times an hour?’

‘My husband is having an affair. Why else would there be this suspicious entry on the credit card statement?’

We see something, we hear something, we bring all our past judgements, values and experiences to bear, with a good dose of that fundamental attribution error and hey presto! We know exactly what is going on. Armed like this, we are ready to take on the opposition and fight tooth and nail for what we believe is right.

And the result? Another strained relationship, another bad day at the office, another nail in the coffin of our marriage.

Fatal indeed… that fundamental attribution error.  It’s gotten me more times than I care to remember.  How about you?