Being misunderstood is a very common behavioral error that all of us go through. Sometimes, we form an image of a person in our mind and make assumptions on its basis even when the other person is not behaving in the way he or she usually acts. Misunderstandings arise all the time. People are compelled to explain things to others. In some cases, short explanations do the trick, and sometimes we have to explain the whole matter to the other person starting from when did the confusion break.
All of us are guilty of assuming things about people with little or no evidence to support. What we feel as a fact turns out to be just an impression. All of us are eager to come to conclusions. When the understanding of this ill-made conclusion translates into words, the communication that takes place leads to misunderstanding. The person you are speaking to is equally prone to ill-made conclusions. Both of you might have said things which had a different implied meaning.
# 1. Keep It Short And Sharp
When you use short statements, the chance of being misunderstood is less than when you use longer sentences. If you use too many words, you run the risk of being open to interpretation. When you use long sentences, the chances are that what you wanted to say is not conveyed correctly. On the other hand, when you use phrases that make the picture black and white chances of being misunderstood are minimum. Even if you do get misunderstood, then another short remark will take care of the misunderstanding.
# 2. Always Get To The End
One sure way of being misunderstood is to say too many things that do not end with something that is definite or is a call to action. Grave matter can be dismissed as trivial and trivial issues can be interpreted as a serious one when one has not concluded his or her saying. You can easily overload the brain of the person you are communicating with if you speak out many things and yet don’t say anything which they can act upon. This opens the gates of contemplation for them which will only make them speculate as to what is and what isn’t in the light of lack of definitive word from you.
# 3. Create And Act In Agreement With Your Identity
All of us can be susceptible to self-doubt, and it creeps up when we realize that the ones we considered as our role models are not perfect and free from error. One should try to shift his or her perspective and practice acceptance instead of carrying a bitter attitude that makes him or her miserable and unappealing both to oneself and others. Being confident in what you do and not wavering from your sense of direction is attractive in a world where people have a hard time defining themselves. When you create your identity, the real relationships you have in your life will always have a degree of affection. If you are genuine and real the people, who dislike you will reject you outright and not stay with you for long thereby reducing your chances of being misunderstood. The ones you have in your life are already aware of what you mean when you say things that are not supposed to be taken literally but only jocularly.
# 4. Text Important Things
One of the best ways to make sure that you are never misunderstood is texting important things or even the little things which matter. Your sent texts will act as evidence, and you can use them whenever people question your responses, tell them that your answer is well thought of and has no room for any other interpretation than the one you are advocating. Sending screenshots of the conversation you have had with them will send them a clear message that it’s their head which is twisting things for them when all of it is simple and clear.
# 5. Lower Your Expectations
Mostly, we assume that people who we have been with for a long time such as our family and close friends understand our expectations from them. While this can be true in some instances where you are not required to predict the next movement of a person as you already know how they will behave, sometimes things can also happen the other way around. They must have behaved in the same manner before, but you must always be prepared for them to be guilty of oversight so that you don’t feel hopeless whenever they behave differently. It really depends on our mood at a given time for us to act in a particular manner. This means that it is not mandatory for a person to behave in the same way throughout his or her life.
# 6. Accept Changes
In the words of a great literary figure ‘We are not the same person this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.’ This translates to the fact that we keep on changing the way we behave and act with time. It all depends on the kind of situations we have experienced in our lives, people that surround us and some other factors. Therefore, in such a case when we are prone to change, we should not expect others to exhibit consistency in their behavior throughout their lives. We should accept their changing attitudes in the same way we accept ours.
# 7. Be Responsible
If you are responsible yourself then you will inspire other people to be responsible as well and it will convey that you are good at taking instructions and listening to what others have to say. One who is good at taking instructions shows that being humble is not a bad thing. People who think that listening to others will compromise their dignity are the ones who greatly misunderstand other people. When you get all intense over people actively thinking about what you said and then making it something other, you are misunderstanding the other person. We often fail to take things as they are, constantly creating versions and believing our side of the story.However, when you are actively listening to the other person, you will be able to spot potential misunderstandings and stop them right when they start brewing. Its always better to have a sense of responsibility towards others and listen to them carefully.
# 8. Treat Conversations Like Business Meetings
How do business conversations go? They move fast as an objective drives them. For business conversations to go well, it is very important that people involved have an objective mindset and they don’t let their personal feelings get in the way of understanding what is best for business. It’s challenging to be impersonal if you are sharing conversations with people you are deeply attached to. When your loved ones tell you something that you did not anticipate, it comes to you as a pleasant surprise or an unpleasant astonishment. Business conversations are very effective in delivering direct and impactful statements which have fewer chances of being misinterpreted.
# 9 Request Them To Repeat
You may have asked them to bring a 350ml bottle and have given them special instruction to buy the black one as it will look good with your cycle. A long set of instruction is difficult to remember. You can always ask them to repeat and check that they have registered and stored the same information in their head so that there is no confusion. It is often the case that our voice can come across as droning to other people. Hence, one can always request to repeat the conveyed message.
Tell us how you avoid being misunderstood. Drop Comments in the comments section below.
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