{"id":28720,"date":"2021-03-13T16:05:40","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T20:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=28720"},"modified":"2021-03-22T20:20:25","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T00:20:25","slug":"read-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/read-people\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Read People’s Intentions: Dos and Donts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you consider yourself a good judge of character<\/a>? What behavior clues do you pay attention to when trying to read people’s intentions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We usually read people’s intentions based on the impact they had on us. But how we respond to something is not sufficient evidence to draw conclusions about someone else\u2019s intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is why you shouldn’t try to read people’s intentions based solely on your own reaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

How to Read People’s Intentions: The Traps to Avoid<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We all know our own intentions, so we never question them. But we never know<\/em> the other person\u2019s intentions unless we ask<\/strong> \u2014 and we rarely do that in the midst of a conversation. Instead, we try to read people’s intentions based of the impact they had on us. This often leads to unfounded assumptions. We assume that cutting remark was meant<\/em> to hurt us, even though we know our own remark that seemed to hurt the other person\u2019s feelings wasn\u2019t<\/em> meant to hurt them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intentions influence how we view other people: <\/strong>we judge someone more harshly if we think they intended to hurt us, or if we think their intentions are bad or ignoble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of it this way: you\u2019re in a rush to get back to the office after stopping off at a cafe to get a quick bite for lunch. You go to back out of your parking spot, but you find yourself blocked in by a fancy BMW, parked in the middle of the lot. What\u2019s the first thought that jumps into your mind? Now, what if it was an ambulance with its lights on instead? This is a good metaphor for how we go into difficult conversations.<\/strong> The BMW represents the assumption that someone has bad intentions; the ambulance represents the assumption that something else important might be going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t Rely on <\/strong>Your Feelings<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We can never know someone else\u2019s intentions \u2014 when we try to read people’s intentions based solely on nonverbal cues<\/a>, we\u2019re usually wrong. We usually read people’s intentions based off the impact<\/em> it had on us. It\u2019s a retroactive reframing of how they intended something. Their comment hurt us, so they must have said it with the intention to hurt us. How we respond to something is not sufficient evidence to draw conclusions about someone else\u2019s intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We usually assume bad intentions so quickly that we don\u2019t realize it\u2019s an assumption \u2014 we think it\u2019s a fact. Email and text-based communication can make it harder to assume the best about other people, because it\u2019s harder to pick up on the tone of things and easier to fill in the gaps ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, we usually assume the worst about other people, though we want them to assume the best about us. When we make a comment that hurts someone else\u2019s feelings, we didn\u2019t mean to be hurtful \u2014 we had other reasons for saying it. But when someone else hurts our feelings, their only intention could have been to hurt us. We give ourselves a lot of leeway that we don\u2019t give other people. This is partially because we know everything that\u2019s going on in our minds but less about how our actions or words are impacting other people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n