First of all, I want to say THANK YOU for all of the encouraging feedback that I have received for my first post, “Live Like A Champion.”  I couldn’t believe how many people read it, and I was humbled when I saw complete strangers retweeting the link. Thank you so much! I hope I can produce more posts that folks can relate to and learn from in the future.

Now let’s get down to business.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever sent a text, read a text, checked an email, or looked at any of your social media accounts on your phone while driving your car? If you didn’t raise your hand, that means one of three things:

1) You do not have a license.

2) You’re not human.

3) You’re guilty, but you think it’s stupid to raise your hand while sitting by yourself, reading some guy’s blog.

Next question: How many of you, upon committing this abhorrent deed, thought the following (or something similar) to yourself? “What a jerk! I am so inconsiderate of those around me. I am a terrible human being!” Nobody answers yes to that question, right? We know we’re not terrible people.  We’re just… “in a hurry,” or we just… “HAD TO check for that very important email we have been waiting on.”

Hold that thought for a minute. Right now, I’d like for you to journey with me to a very familiar situation:

While driving to work, you pull up to an intersection and stop because you have a red light.  You are the second car in an ever-growing line of cars.  You’re in a hurry to get to work, so you are a little bit anxious. The light turns green, and you quickly take your foot off the brake, almost hitting the gas pedal before you look to see what’s happening in front of you.  Once you look ahead, you realize that the car in front of you hasn’t moved, forcing you to slam your foot back down on the brake pedal.  The light is green for a whole three seconds before you decide that it is your duty to honk your horn and get this guy out of the way (way to take one for the team). You honk, and you see the guy’s head pop up as he hits the gas and takes off.  What was he doing? You quickly realize that HE WAS ON HIS PHONE!!! What a jerk! I can’t believe that guy would be so inconsiderate! Doesn’t he know how dangerous it is to be on your phone while driving?! What a terrible human being!

You see what I did there? Sound familiar?

In this scenario, you have just committed what most psychologists refer to as the fundamental attribution error. In the eighth edition of David Myers’ Psychology, the author defines the fundamental attribution error as “the tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.”  In other words, if you mess up, I’m blaming it solely on you because it has to be a character flaw (you’re a terrible person).  If I mess up, there has to be a circumstantial explanation because I am a good person, and a good person would never commit such a heinous act without a great reason.

At this point, you have probably realized that this is not a post about texting and driving (although we should all do a better job of NOT doing it). I chose to use this situation because it is a common example that most of us can relate to. I’m writing about the fundamental attribution error because I see it all the time (translation: I do it all the time), and I think that it is something we (I) need to stop doing. Think about it. How easily do we dismiss our own undesirable behaviors while condemning the people around us when they make the same mistakes?

I am the worst about doing this.  Every time someone is late to a meeting, someone swerves unexpectedly in traffic, or someone is too loud in a movie theater I catch myself thinking, “I can’t believe that guy would do that.” The reality of it, however, is that I AM THAT GUY! My wife will be the first one to tell you that. She’s actually gotten up and moved a few seats away from me in a theater because I was laughing too loudly.

Let me explain why this is so bad.  When you continuously make these quick judgments about others’ dispositions, you start developing an overly critical heart, and that can snowball on you. First, you will start to become critical of every little thing that people do. Then you start becoming more critical about the things you do.  Next thing you know, you start worrying, almost to the point of paranoia, about others being critical of everything you do. Why wouldn’t you be worried about it? You’ve been judging everyone else on a regular basis. Surely, you have to think that they are judging you too, right? When you get to this point, you’ve lost your freedom.  The freedom to make mistakes.

This is a terrible thing to lose. You cannot be afraid to make mistakes in this life. You have to embrace them. Growth takes place in the valleys, and we can learn from our failures if we have the right mindset. The problem is that we can become paralyzed by our fear of being criticized, and when this happens, we stop taking chances. When that happens, we stop growing.

I’ve seen it in my own life and in the lives of others around me. It plays out in mental statements like these: “I’ve had a lot of success doing _____, so I better stick with that if I want to have any chance of continued success.” “That’s a great opportunity. I think I’m ready for it, but I’m not quite sure. Maybe I ought to wait until I KNOW I’m ready.” “There is probably somebody else more qualified than me anyway.” “What will everybody else think about me?” “I want to change the culture of this organization, but what if nobody follows my lead?” All of these statements keep us from growing, from trying, from getting better, or from achieving something meaningful. They can even keep us from dreaming.

So where do we go from here?

I am NOT saying that we shouldn’t have high standards for ourselves or for the people in our organization. I’m not saying that we should just start dismissing poor performance, tardiness, or mistakes. Set high standards, and hold people accountable. However, keep this in mind: There’s a big difference between holding people accountable and judging them.

What I am suggesting is that we each need to realize that there is, in fact, a thing called the fundamental attribution error and that it is something we all do. Once we all come to that realization, my next suggestion is pretty easy to execute: don’t assume that every mistake someone makes is a result of some deep-rooted character flaw. If that were the case, there would be no hope for any of us. All people mess up from time to time. Be a little empathetic. Before you write them off as the scum of the earth because they mistakenly drank the bottle of Desani that you put in the break room refrigerator, take a deep breath and realize that they, most likely, were not being malicious.

By discontinuing the judgment that so many of us are guilty of committing on a regular basis, we will become better spouses, better parents, better co-workers, and better leaders. In the end, we will ultimately be giving ourselves the freedom to make our own mistakes without fear of the criticism and judgment of others.  That’s where the real growth happens.

See you next time!