Judgements Are Made Up, Not Real - Grasshopper

Judgements are always made up – in our mind.

"He's doing poorly in school." "Poorly" is a judgement. Your assessment may be based on a comparison of how other students are doing in the same class, but the word "poorly" is made up. It doesn't exist in nature.

 

Just like "good and bad" are made up, "poorly" doesn't exist.

 

Judgement words are not helpful in moving someone forward. "He has 'lousy' study habits. He needs 'better' habits."

 

Judgements keep us in our head and not in reality where real change takes place. Judgements delay taking action.

 

Judgement words, like the ones cited above, keep us in a fluffy world where concrete action cannot take place.

 

Better to describe the actions that are necessary to move forward rather than resorting to judgements. Judgements just stick the problem in place. Describing the actions necessary loosens the glue and gets a person busy on their "to-do."

 

Let's extract the fluffy judgements and see how much quicker we can get to the necessary actions.

 

"Johnny is ranked 53^rd out of 54 students in the class. The recommended course of action is to have him do one hour of supervised tutoring 3 nights a week for a month and then we'll recalculate his ranking based on his grades between now and then."

 

That's an action plan. Judging how "poorly" Johnny is doing delays action. Judgement words invite a justifying story. "The reason he's doing so poorly is because his parents work long hours and he's a latch key kid with little supervision."

 

Spending time on why you are the way you are delays taking the actions necessary to get to where you want to go. The story takes you backwards into justification which is always a delaying action.

 

We act as though we are describing something real when we offer judgements. We're not. Fluffy judgement words mean different things to different people and are not useful in putting together an action plan.

 

Get in the habit of using real world language and watch your communication skills improve and have actions come quicker. A quick story . . .

I recently had a conversation with a doctor about how long I would have to take the prescribed medications after a medical procedure I was scheduled for. His answer was "A while." I said, "Doc, I can't take 'a while' to the bank. What is 'a while' in real measurable language?" I got a concrete actionable answer.

 

Swapping judgements can be fun conversation but they really don't move anything forward. To get to where you want to go takes real world action, not judging the problem over another cup of Joe.

 

All the best,

John