A girlfriend and I were chatting about a seminar she had attended recently, and one of her takeaways from it was that we don’t know how we are perceived by others and we should be asking them, because it doesn’t always line up with who we think we are.
There are all sorts of sayings like, “I’m only responsible for what I say, not what you hear”, and “I’ve become an age where I don’t care what people think of me anymore”, and while I think there is an element of truth to these sayings on some levels… since my conversation with her, I’m seeing another dimension I wasn’t conscious of before.
I remember a person who could be so scary with his words and actions, but couldn’t understand why others didn’t see him as a gentle soul.
Another who logically backs up their actions to do the “right thing”, but can be seen as callous on the receiving end.
Someone else I know is the opposite. He wants so badly to please others, but then he was surprised to be called a “yes man”.
When I think about all of these different people, I can understand the importance of learning how we are perceived, because who we think we are and who we are presenting to the world is in conflict.
Someone I’ve never had a conversation with told a friend of my moms that I was a snob… I wish they would have told me so I could have asked them about it because usually people tell me they love that I’m always smiling.
On a vacation where I had no agenda of what I wanted to do I thought I was flexible and open minded, but I think I was perceived instead as wishy washy and indecisive.
I haven’t figured out how to find out how I am being perceived and receive the truth, before it becomes a complaint about me.
Will people tell me if I’m callous? If I scare them, would they say?
As a reader of my blog, I would love to hear all of the ways I’m perceived by you, to see if it lines up with who I think I am.
Could you oblige me in the comments so I can figure this out?