Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #195| How the Most Generous Interpretation Helps Keep You Out of Overwhelm and In Control
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Remember, it's the behavior, not the person.
- 0:07Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:15Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:20Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences.
- 0:25Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:34Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:35Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining today.
- 0:36Michelle Gauthier: Today we're going to be talking about the most generous interpretation or MGI.
- 0:41Michelle Gauthier: That is essentially using the most generous interpretation of someone else's behavior to stop you from feeling stressed out by essentially giving them the benefit of the doubt.
- 0:53Michelle Gauthier: I'm going to tell you more about what it exactly is and how to do it, how to use it in real life situations.
- 1:00Michelle Gauthier: And then finally, we're going to talk about when to not use it because I know everyone's mind, mine included, would go to, yeah, but that can't always be the case.
- 1:09Michelle Gauthier: We can't always give someone the benefit of the doubt or the most generous interpretation.
- 1:13Michelle Gauthier: And I think that's true too.
- 1:14Michelle Gauthier: So we're going to talk about when not to use it.
- 1:17Michelle Gauthier: This episode will help you feel lighter and more in control of your own emotions when you start giving people the MGI, most generous interpretation.
- 1:28Michelle Gauthier: As with most, as is the case with most episodes, I get inspired by things that I see in my own life or in my client's life.
- 1:38Michelle Gauthier: And it reminds me, yes, I need to talk about that on the podcast.
- 1:42Michelle Gauthier: And I've had a couple things lately where I have been able to switch into the MGI version and have the most generous interpretation of someone else's behavior and noticed once again how much better I feel.
- 1:55Michelle Gauthier: And when I feel better, I can handle a situation more calmly.
- 1:59Michelle Gauthier: So let's get into it.
- 2:00Michelle Gauthier: MGI is a psychology term, and I learned about it from Dr.
- 2:05Michelle Gauthier: Becky.
- 2:06Michelle Gauthier: If you don't know who Dr.
- 2:07Michelle Gauthier: Becky is, she is a parenting psychologist and she wrote a book called Good Inside.
- 2:13Michelle Gauthier: I just saw that Time magazine named her the Millennial Parenting Whisperer.
- 2:18Michelle Gauthier: I love that.
- 2:19Michelle Gauthier: What a great title.
- 2:20Michelle Gauthier: Anyway, I heard of MGI from Dr.
- 2:23Michelle Gauthier: Becky, and I just thought that it was such a fantastic idea.
- 2:26Michelle Gauthier: She talks about it in terms of raising children, and I think it's great for parenting, but it's also great with just anyone who you run into.
- 2:35Michelle Gauthier: And the basic concept is that you separate the behavior from the person.
- 2:41Michelle Gauthier: So last week, one of my teenagers was very upset with me because you know, sometimes when you're a parent and you have to have boundaries or tell your teen or even a two-year-old, I feel like this behavior is just, it's different words and different situations, but it's the same kind of thing.
- 3:00Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes they just lose their mind.
- 3:03Michelle Gauthier: And I had to remind myself, this child, I'm trying not to use gender, this child is a very good person who made a bad choice.
- 3:12Michelle Gauthier: And so I think the first and most important point of MGI is separating the behavior, what a person is doing or saying from their identity.
- 3:22Michelle Gauthier: So when kids are little, we don't tell them you're a bad kid, right?
- 3:28Michelle Gauthier: We tell them you made a bad choice.
- 3:30Michelle Gauthier: And honestly, I still use that with my teenagers.
- 3:32Michelle Gauthier: I will say, you are such a good kid.
- 3:35Michelle Gauthier: And that was a bad choice.
- 3:36Michelle Gauthier: So let's talk about why you made that bad choice.
- 3:39Michelle Gauthier: So separating that, and I think that's really helpful to both me as a parent to remind myself, and to the child, because who of us wants to think because we've made a mistake of any kind that we're a bad person?
- 3:52Michelle Gauthier: Nobody does.
- 3:53Michelle Gauthier: So instead, in that moment, you ask yourself, why are they behaving this way?
- 3:58Michelle Gauthier: Could something else be going on?
- 4:00Michelle Gauthier: What is the most generous explanation for this behavior?
- 4:04Michelle Gauthier: What could they be struggling with?
- 4:06Michelle Gauthier: And that was definitely true of my teenager, that they were really struggling with something and the frustration was coming out in bad choices and talking to me in a way that I do not approve of.
- 4:18Michelle Gauthier: I do not approve of that message.
- 4:20Michelle Gauthier: When you use MGI, you can replace judgment with curiosity.
- 4:25Michelle Gauthier: And then you can usually get to the bottom of the situation much better.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: And this is just such a good reminder of like the old adage.
- 4:33Michelle Gauthier: I know my mom taught me this and my nanny used to say it too.
- 4:36Michelle Gauthier: Is you never know what's going on with someone else.
- 4:38Michelle Gauthier: And as a person who talks to people all day long who are trying to improve their lives, you just never know.
- 4:44Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes people have the hardest stuff going on.
- 4:48Michelle Gauthier: And you might just sit next to them at a soccer game or, you know, be in a work meeting with them and you just have no idea what's going on with most people.
- 4:58Michelle Gauthier: So let's think a little bit about how you can use this.
- 5:01Michelle Gauthier: And I'll give you some examples of using it in different places of your life.
- 5:04Michelle Gauthier: So again, that the real key is just to in the moment you see someone's behavior or you hear the words that they say and you pause and think, what is the most generous interpretation I could have of this person's behavior?
- 5:18Michelle Gauthier: In friendships, you know, when you're in adult friendships and sometimes you text someone or you ask them if they want to do something and you just don't hear back from them, or they say no a bunch of times in a row, your default could be something like, she's just ignoring me, or she doesn't want to hang out with me, or what did I do to make her angry?
- 5:38Michelle Gauthier: But if you switch that to being curious, like what else could this behavior mean?
- 5:43Michelle Gauthier: What's the most generous interpretation that I could have for this?
- 5:47Michelle Gauthier: You might think, I bet she's probably overwhelmed or distracted.
- 5:50Michelle Gauthier: I've totally been there too.
- 5:52Michelle Gauthier: I will just wait until she gets back to me.
- 5:55Michelle Gauthier: And I just had a funny situation, actually.
- 5:57Michelle Gauthier: The handsome man friend was being very empathetic and sweet and listening to me on a Thursday night.
- 6:04Michelle Gauthier: I call it Thursday night tired.
- 6:06Michelle Gauthier: There's something about Thursday night.
- 6:07Michelle Gauthier: I'm always just so tired.
- 6:08Michelle Gauthier: It's like you've almost made it through the week.
- 6:10Michelle Gauthier: And I was just essentially in tears, like, I'm so tired.
- 6:15Michelle Gauthier: I'm in charge of everything, all my same thoughts that I go back to.
- 6:21Michelle Gauthier: And he's like, What is something that I could do to help you?
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: Just anything, something I could do.
- 6:27Michelle Gauthier: And I was like, There's nothing.
- 6:28Michelle Gauthier: And then I'm like, you know what would be amazing if you made the bed.
- 6:32Michelle Gauthier: So he doesn't live with me, but when he stays over, he gets up after me.
- 6:38Michelle Gauthier: And there's just something about walking back into my bedroom later in the day and having a made bed that makes me really happy.
- 6:44Michelle Gauthier: And if it's just me, when I get up, I can make the bed.
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: But if he's there, I'm obviously not going to make the bed when he's still in it.
- 6:50Michelle Gauthier: So I said, you could make the bed.
- 6:52Michelle Gauthier: That would be amazing.
- 6:55Michelle Gauthier: So the next time I went into my room, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had made the bed.
- 7:01Michelle Gauthier: And the time after that, and the time after that, and the time after that.
- 7:04Michelle Gauthier: He makes the bed every single time, like without fail.
- 7:08Michelle Gauthier: And when I look at the bed and the way that the bed is made compared to how I make the bed, there are a couple key differences.
- 7:16Michelle Gauthier: The first is there nothing is happening with the sheets at all.
- 7:19Michelle Gauthier: The sheets are just left as however they were when we slept in the bed.
- 7:23Michelle Gauthier: And he pulls the covers up over the sheets.
- 7:26Michelle Gauthier: And then I have many throw pillows that go on my bed.
- 7:30Michelle Gauthier: I think there's like five.
- 7:31Michelle Gauthier: He finds this annoying.
- 7:32Michelle Gauthier: I find this cute.
- 7:33Michelle Gauthier: And so he throws them towards the top of the bed.
- 7:36Michelle Gauthier: So we've got like the kind of rumpled comforter and then just like haphazard pillows.
- 7:42Michelle Gauthier: So what I could think in that situation is okay, he's saying he's gonna help me, but he doesn't really see me.
- 7:49Michelle Gauthier: That's not the way that I make the bed, that's not the way that I like the bed made, et cetera.
- 7:54Michelle Gauthier: But if I go to the most generous interpretation, what I could say is, that is so sweet.
- 8:00Michelle Gauthier: He made the bed.
- 8:01Michelle Gauthier: He heard me.
- 8:02Michelle Gauthier: He knows that that is one area that would make me really happy.
- 8:05Michelle Gauthier: And he made that bed for me.
- 8:08Michelle Gauthier: And you know what?
- 8:08Michelle Gauthier: Now I'm very practiced at this MGI thought.
- 8:12Michelle Gauthier: It makes me smile when I see I uh and I don't fix it, by the way.
- 8:16Michelle Gauthier: I don't fix it.
- 8:17Michelle Gauthier: And it makes me smile every time when I see those haphazard pillows, or I'll pull back the comforter at night and the sheets are like all crumpled underneath the comforter.
- 8:26Michelle Gauthier: So I made the choice to decide that that means when I see the bed made, he heard me, he loves me.
- 8:33Michelle Gauthier: And I could, if I wasn't using MGI, I could just be annoyed every single day that oh, he made the bed, but he didn't do a good job and he doesn't care about me and all the negative things that I could make that mean.
- 8:45Michelle Gauthier: The same thing can be true at work.
- 8:47Michelle Gauthier: Somebody drops the ball and you can decide that they are an unreliable person, or you could say they're really overloaded right now.
- 8:56Michelle Gauthier: So there's a million places where you can use this, but the reason why, I think it's nice because we give the other person the benefit of the doubt, but it also helps you from getting annoyed.
- 9:07Michelle Gauthier: So now when I walk in my bedroom and I see that bed made, it makes me happy, it makes me smile instead of me being annoyed with it.
- 9:14Michelle Gauthier: And that's just great for me.
- 9:16Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so now probably comes the question of Michelle, you're always talking about boundaries.
- 9:20Michelle Gauthier: What if someone is consistently having this behavior and I don't want to MGI it away?
- 9:26Michelle Gauthier: And you know what I would say to that?
- 9:28Michelle Gauthier: You're right.
- 9:29Michelle Gauthier: You shouldn't.
- 9:30Michelle Gauthier: So if you feel like there's a pattern and you're being disrespected, or at work, for example, if someone on your team just drops the ball on something and you say, okay, maybe she's just having a bad day, or maybe he had a fight with his wife this morning, or you give them the most generous interpretation.
- 9:49Michelle Gauthier: You can't just continue to do that forever.
- 9:51Michelle Gauthier: The good thing to do when you're in that situation, especially if it's with an employee or your kids or something, is say, Well, tell me about what's going on.
- 10:00Michelle Gauthier: Tell me why that happened, tell me what's going on to get curious about it.
- 10:04Michelle Gauthier: And then just know that it's still helpful for you to use MGI to try to understand what's going on with that other person and to get your brain in a calm place.
- 10:15Michelle Gauthier: And then you can ask yourself, okay, is this a pattern?
- 10:18Michelle Gauthier: For example, at the beginning, I mentioned that one of my kids was very upset the other day and very mad at me for ruining their life with boundaries.
- 10:26Michelle Gauthier: And if if one of my children talked to me like that and was that upset every single day or even once a week, I would definitely take different action.
- 10:35Michelle Gauthier: I would obviously still care about them, but I would set a boundary.
- 10:39Michelle Gauthier: I would find someone else for them to talk to.
- 10:41Michelle Gauthier: I would try to see what's going on with them.
- 10:43Michelle Gauthier: I would maybe meet with their teacher.
- 10:45Michelle Gauthier: So it's totally okay.
- 10:46Michelle Gauthier: Like the goal of this isn't to just ignore someone else's behavior and pretend it isn't happening.
- 10:53Michelle Gauthier: It's just to calm your own brain by giving them the benefit of the doubt so you can decide what to do next.
- 10:59Michelle Gauthier: So you can have a most generous interpretation and also set a boundary.
- 11:05Michelle Gauthier: It's really not about pretending everything's fine.
- 11:08Michelle Gauthier: It's just staying in your own head, your own calm brain, and refusing to let frustration turn into unnecessary suffering.
- 11:16Michelle Gauthier: So next time, and maybe it'll be even today, someone disappoints you or confuses you.
- 11:21Michelle Gauthier: Try to just ask yourself, what's the most generous interpretation of this behavior?
- 11:26Michelle Gauthier: And remember, it's the behavior, not the person.
- 11:29Michelle Gauthier: Okay, friends, that's it.
- 11:31Michelle Gauthier: I hope you have a fantastic week.
- 11:33Michelle Gauthier: If you love this episode or the podcast in general, and you would leave us a review on Apple or Spotify, that would be absolutely amazing.
- 11:41Michelle Gauthier: We continue to get more listeners, and we're currently ranked at top 1.5%.
- 11:47Michelle Gauthier: I would love to get to top 1%.
- 11:49Michelle Gauthier: That means we get shown in many more places to people who need what we're sharing here.
- 11:56Michelle Gauthier: Have a great week.
- 11:58Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 12:05Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com.
- 12:11Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.