Avoid Being Misunderstood in a Conversation by Changing Your Perception
It is frustrating to be misunderstood in a conversation, especially when you think you are speaking crystal clear. It’s a matter of perception, but you need to focus on their perception, not yours.
Our brains love to take shortcuts when we listen to others by reading facial expressions and body language, and when we speak, we tend to fall prey to the illusion of transparency when we overestimate how clearly we think we are behaving when we speak. Heidi Grant Halvorson, professor at Columbia Business School and author of No One Understands You and What to Do About It , suggests that it’s about changing your perception:
… that it is much more practical for you to decide to be a good signal sender than to hope that the perceiver will enter the second phase of perception. It is unrealistic to expect people to make such an effort. Can you imagine how tedious it would be to weigh the various motivations of another person? Also, you cannot control what is going on in the other person’s mind, but you can control how you face it.
If you find that people regularly misunderstand you, you need to review the signals you send. How will you understand your own signals? Is your body language disabled? Do you find yourself making a neutral face when you are really angry? It is also helpful to think about ways to further explain what you are trying to say. Most fights are due to simple misunderstanding , but you can prevent them by sending additional clear signals.
Mixed Signals: Why People Misunderstand Each Other | Atlantic Ocean