Do you jump to false accusations as a matter of habit? It could be because you are unaccustomed to differentiating between the phenomena of what has occurred and the story you make up to explain it.
Last weekend my neighbours (who also happen to be my landlords) were shifting a pile of dirt from the front yard to elsewhere in the garden. The wheelbarrow they were using looked a little shonky so I offered to loan them mine and the offer was accepted.
That night however, I noted with some concern that my wheelbarrow had not been returned. I took a look into next door’s yard as I drove past and couldn’t see it. Thoughts such as “How dare they”, and, “They are so inconsiderate” were running through my head. My wife even commented that “They have probably filled it with ice for a party.”
The only fact we had to go on was the non-return of the wheelbarrow. Everything else around that was a story. Something which we invented to make sense of what was going on and clearly negative in this case. Creating stories to make sense of something is very common and completely unavoidable. As humans we seek meaning in all that we do and that meaning comes from the stories we create about what we have observed. This simple example about the wheelbarrow is repeated at all levels of life. The stories we make are also related to what is important to us. It makes sense that George Bush and John Howard after recent election wins in the US and Australia claim that people voted on the back of terrorism. That was what they campaigned on and so obviously why we voted them back in. This can be dangerous supposition.
Anyway, back to the case of the missing wheelbarrow which by about Wednesday I had given up for ever.
Our neighbour knocked at the door sometime late Wednesday afternoon. With wheelbarrow…with new handle.
Sometime during the previous Saturday’s work one of the wooden handles snapped; apparently due to a kink in the woodgrain. Our kind and considerate neighbour (yes, note the change in Assessment when new facts are offered) took it upon himself to get a new handle.
This simple exercise was a valuable learning for me. As a coach I now understand much more clearly why I am trained to help a coachee separate the fact or phenomena from the story they hold about it. Because it then becomes possible to create a new story which is better suited to their goals.
I expect such false accusations are common. All that I spoke to about my missing wheelbarrow immediately had a negative reaction. What was yours when you read the earlier paragraphs? Were you on my side or my neighbours? Why were you on a side at all?
Next time something isn’t working as you expected and you begin to get a bit hot under the collar stop and ask yourself for “Just the facts ma’am”.