The One Thing To Remember About Human Behavior
I used to walk away from interactions with people feeling — icky. I wouldn’t know why. They weren’t being mean or saying anything that was actually offensive. But still I felt turned off by our conversation.
Then there are some people who are masters at being able to break you down without using their words. Leaving you confused and unable to explain why or how they hurt you.
It made me become hyper aware of how my message will be received by other people. It doesn’t matter the way it was delivered, all that matters is the impact it has made.
People Will Always Remember How You Made Them Feel
It doesn’t matter that you won the argument.
It doesn’t matter that you didn’t actually say anything rude, because you let your tone and body language say it for you.
If your condescending, manipulative, rude, or dismissive that’s what they’ll remember.
You can’t get out of something on a technicality. There are no loopholes in human emotions.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou
People’s intuition is so often downplayed. We can deeply read into situations and we know when someone is being genuine. People can feel your intention, you can’t fake it.
Even if you didn’t do anything ‘wrong’ — they will still remember how you made them feel bad.
Negative emotions have a bigger impact
Children tend to remember bad parenting moments more than good ones. They have more unpleasant memories, even if they rate their childhood as happy.
The golden relationship ratio of good to bad interactions is 5:1, where there is 5 good interactions to every 1 bad one. Anything smaller then that and people will view it negatively.
Bad events also wear off much slower than good events. Its thought to be evolutionary, as survival requires attention to the possible bad outcomes.
Think About How You Want To Come Accross
I do agree that intention doesn’t always change your impact. Meaning that even with the best intentions, we can make negative impacts. But the majority of the time people can feel your intention.
If your intention is to come across as condescending, people will feel that.
If your intention was to come across as caring, people will feel that.
Always think about how you want to come across to other people. Negative interactions are much more memorable, it’s harder to make that comeback.
People will remember your vibe and your energy, not your words.
