Hi, and welcome to the Mindset Coach Academy podcast. Today, it is Mental Monday, and we are talking all about mindset, how to live it, how to teach it, and how to sell it.
Hi, all, and welcome back to the Mindset Coach Academy podcast. It's Mental Monday. All right, I wanted to talk about just like a really simple concept.
I mean, guess really all the Mental Mondays are simple concepts. But this one came up recently. I, it actually wasn't that recently. It was a few weeks ago. But I was at my women's group, and lately I have been very emotional when I've been talking to the group. And on this particular day, I was not. And this woman came up to me afterwards, and she said, Lindsey, like, oh my goodness, you didn't cry today.
And I know her as having a really good heart. But in that moment, I also like, so I took it that way. I took it as, well, one, it's a fact.
And two is I wanted to not take that in a negative way. Dr. Becky Kennedy, who does the Good Inside podcast, she talks about your children's behavior, reacting, giving them like the most generous interpretation of their actions. So if they're having a tantrum, it's not that they're a bad kid. It's that they're having a hard time. They didn't eat. They didn't sleep, whatever. It's a generous interpretation.
Okay. And I think about that sometimes, certainly with my kids, but also with other people. Another example was I was driving down the street and a car was pulling out. And, and it was like taking forever to go back into like their driveway.
I can't even remember what the details were. But I think the guy had to get back into the car and get back in. And he, he looked at me, he mouthed something and he did a gesture. And the woman next to me said something like, like, what was that or something? And I was like, I don't know. I don't know if he was thanking me for waiting.
I don't know if he was mad. He actually made this gesture that this is like kind of a funny anecdote. But like he did this gesture that in having lived abroad, there's different gestures, right? And so this gesture was very much more of like, excuse my language, an F U. And I really was in that moment like, I have no idea if the guy was thanking me or if he was flicking me off in a different language. And it was this funny moment where I was like, I'm just going to choose to assume he was thanking me.
And I went on with my day. So like this generous interpretation, I don't always get it right. And it is certainly a lot of it depends on my mental state going into it. But in both those instances, I chose to have that, like give that woman the benefit of the doubt that she was just saying something sort of innocuous that literally I could have been upset about and I just chose not to be. And I almost thought of it as funny. I also know her. She's not a mean person, but she's also a very blunt person. And then for this stranger who I don't know at all, I just, I don't have any backstory with him.
So I don't know him from, you know, Adam, but I chose to have a generous interpretation. And you know, in many ways, I'm just doing it for me. I'm just doing it because that makes my day better. I feel better when I don't think someone is out to get me.
I feel better driving down the street, having someone just thank me instead of looking me off. And so my challenge for you today is for the rest of the day, if you can, or even the next difficult moment, can you choose a generous interpretation? Just try it because guys, here's the thing.
We can always choose the not generous interpretation. It's pretty actually freaking easy. And then we get mad, we get sad, we feel like a victim, we feel like the world's against us. Like we know how that story ends, right?
I mean, it's, it happens all the time. Or we choose the other. And I'm choosing the other when I remember.
It's not perfect because many times I don't. But today I'm challenging you. I'm going to challenge myself to try to remember to give someone the generous interpretation.
In other words, it's the benefit of the doubt, but it's even more because it's more of a, it's going beyond and really thinking that they have good intentions, the generous interpretation. All right, guys, give it a try. Come on over to Instagram.
Come on over to @lindseypositiveperform. Let me know if you tried this. I would love to have you slide in my DMs and say, yes, I tried this with my kid and it made a difference. Or I tried this with the, you know, someone in the parking lot and it made a difference. Just give it a try and let me know. All right, guys, see you next week for Mental Monday.
Bye for now.
Hi guys, Lindsey here. If you love this podcast, I want to ask you to do three things to help us and to help us grow mindset and mental performance coaching. The first is to subscribe to this podcast. It helps us and it helps you because you'll never miss an important episode.
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