I don’t understand what you are saying. You should tell me clearly. If you can simply tell me what you want then I can do that but you are making it very complicated and I really don’t know what you want of me.
These are some words that you say every single day when there is a mismatch of desires and their fulfillment. There is always dissatisfaction on either sides because we never seem to come to any agreed results. You will say that you have put in your best to get the answers but the other will disagree.
I know it is not clear yet so let me go through this with you. Your boss has asked you to submit your reports latest by the end of the day and you completed it and sent it by next morning before the office opens. Your reasoning is that he needs it on his desk before the next days cadence meeting. Accordingly, you have done your job well in time. But the truth is he needed them previous night so that he had sufficient time to write his own. But you used your mind to arrive at your own skewed conclusions based on your flimsy understanding. You did wrong judgements and thought that the reports were needed only the next day.
Now let us see the next case. You are getting married to a person who is highly educated with a successful career in the IT industry. Since he is widely travelled and comes from a very good family background, you assumed that he would understand your bug for travel and quest for knowledge. Since you have a yen for travel writing, you want to go to a lot of places. But he has his own plans. He wants to settle down and cut down on his journeys. He wants a steady life. He wants a wife who will be there at home, taking care of his parents and home and bearing his children. He wants to come back to someone’s arms for a whole load of loving and pampering. He wants her to make his food and his bed too. Not someone who lives in a suitcase.
Now I hope you see the mismatch here. It all starts with miscommunication of commands and misinterpretation of signals. We assume too many things in life. We believe that we have understood what was required of us but when we do that, there is always a failure.
Listening to what the other says is important and not missing the important points. But what actually happens is, we have started our thinking process and judging the words even before they are completed. We have already put together a plan of action. Hoping to get a quick start or giving the other the highest satisfaction, we assumed the requirements and begun our actions. Even wrong interpretations of signals and assuming too many things can create this disasters.
Two people in love also create such a disaster. Take the story of the Magi. He sells his watch to buy her a brooch for her long hair and she sells her tresses to buy him a chain for his watch. We may look at it as such an outpouring of love but look at the futility of life there. Neither understood each other. They may have the best interests in their mind for the other but did it fructify? Both were dissatisfied in the end. Both will rue the things they did for the other. All for what gain? No gain at all. Both lost out on their valuables.
This is what happens in our jobs, marriage, life and with god too. We sign up blindly in all these above relationships and then feel miserable sooner than we can imagine. No job is fulfilling. No marriage is a success. No life is a bed of roses and no god can fulfill you demands completely.
There are few things to preempt all the disasters in life. Here are they!
First one is start listening and shut your minds chatter. Stop that mind preempting the next course of action, even before the clear instructions are given. Listen very carefully to the one instructing you.
Secondly, listen to the signals given by the other. Learn to read the body language. In marriage, job or love, it’s all about giving and not about taking. You give love, not demand for it. Got that? Marriages fail because we demand too much from our spouses. Start giving and you will have a successful marriage. Put your 100% in the job and you will surely be successful in your career.
Third, before you start anything make the right preparations for the next steps. Prepare for the inevitable and the fallback too. Planning out your course of action towards the fulfillment of the set goal is necessary.
Fourthly, take help whenever needed. Ask for feedback from the other about your progress. This helps in going perfectly on the track. Any veering out can get corrected as soon as feedback is received. So always ask for guidance and feedback while the action is being performed.
Lastly, do not exult or give a victory cry after you have completed the said task. Let the partner come up with the results. We start jumping to conclusions about any actual performances and spoil the chances for any constructive criticism. So stop yourself from giving cent percent marks for your own performances. Ask for their reactions. You may be surprised at how it transpired.
So now follow these five steps and see how you can better yourself every time. I am sure you will succeed in your own and your partners eyes too.
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