Any time we walk into a familiar situation, we have advantages of knowing how the situation works. We know the people, the place, and the usual routines that each brings to the “system” of what’s going on. That same advantage of knowing, that is also a disadvantage. It can sabotage us by leading our thinking down the wrong paths or leaving us blind to new behaviors unless they are striking different, unable to see that what we expect isn’t what’s going on.
That disadvantage of knowing a situation is one reason why we can’t check our own work. If we know the thinking that went into it, we can’t find the hidden assumptions or the parts that are missing. We already know why we did what we did. We already know why the people involved chose as they chose.
When we invite an intelligent outsider to table to look with “fresh eyes” and a “fresh mind,” that person won’t necessarily understand when he or she encounters the places where we skipped a step in laying out the logic.
It’s a simple case of you can’t know and NOT know at the same time.
The same is true when we meet up with family and friends. We fall back into roles and relationships so familiar that it can leave us blind. We walk in to the situation with hidden assumptions that make the situation familiar, but also keep folks tied to our definition of who they were, making harder for them to show us who they are now. We all have had the same thing happen to us as our parents or our siblings still see us as we were when we were 12 years old and can’t seem to see us as we are now.
If we want change the way people see us, it could work to try on that role of intelligent outsider.
When we meet up with friends this weekend, what would happen if we looked with “fresh eyes” and a “fresh mind” that offers them a fresh starting place — much like the fresh place a new friend of a friend gets to start a relationship with us?
Or as Barbara Kiviat said in such a memorable way . . .
When you hear a tune in your head, it’s tough to put yourself in the position of a person who doesn’t. —BARBARA KIVIAT, Time
What if we unstick the stories of our friends, family, and ourselves from the past that are stuck in our heads for just that short little while?
How might our relationships with friends, family, and ourselves change?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!