Our minds are wired to take shortcuts when we’re feeling stressed or anxious. During difficult times, the more primitive parts of our brain take over and lead us to make snap decisions and instant judgements. Understanding these shortcuts and biases is a vital topic for improving your mental performance and one of my favourite ideas to explore in coaching.
One such mental shortcut is our mind’s tendency to view people in black-and-white, all-or-nothing terms when we’re feeling stressed or pressured. Whenever your cavepersonbrain is telling you you’re under attack, you don’t have time to stop and evaluate every aspect of every person around you. In that moment, they’re either friend or foe.
Seeing people in black-and-white terms may have been beneficial in early human society when distinctions really could be that simple at times. But in the 21st century, life is so much more nuanced and complicated. And this black-and-white thinking can create a dangerous cycle for people wanting to master interpersonal situations.
So, what can you do about it? Is moving past this cavepersonmentality a reasonable performance goal to set for yourself? Well, unfortunately, you can’t change the countless years of evolution that have caused the human brain to work this way. But you can, with a bit of effort, train yourself to quieten the voice of the caveperson in the back of your mind when emotions escalateAnd you can learn to view situations differently, in a way that better reflects the complex modern social world. I call it “bus stop diplomacy.”
Everyone in your world exists on a continuum of how closely you know them. At one end, you have the people you see each morning at the bus stop—people you smile and nod to and maybe exchange a few words with but never go beyond that.
Next, you have the people on your street whose names you don’t know but with whom you can hold a reasonable conversation as you walk by. Then there’s the “chatting over the fence” category of people—neighbours you like but don’t know well enough to invite inside.
Next, you might have people who get invited to BBQs and parties—friends you know a little better and whose company you enjoy. And then there are those people you really like and feel comfortable with. They get invited into your house for dinner parties. Those you really like get invited into the bedroom.
This continuum can be used instead of the “friend or foe” mentality that you fall back on when heightened emotion is apparent. It’s useful because it’s a lot less all-or-nothing. You don’t have to classify someone as a threat to your safety after one upset—you can just move them from “over the fence talk” to “bus stop”. Anytime someone makes you feel unsafe, you can readjust their position on the scale until you find a place you feel okay with them. You may not be comfortable inviting someone into your house, but that doesn’t mean you have to view them as fully bad—they could just be more of a “BBQ only” person.
The beauty of this system is that there’s no threat to it—just levels of distance and comfort. Putting someone all the way out at the bus stop doesn’t necessarily mean they are a threat to you or that they are a bad person—merely that you don’t feel ready to open up to them or perhaps that your relationship with them has become challenging for some reason. This way of viewing people produces far less worry. It lets you feel emotionally safe without totally burning your bridges with people. And it’s subject to change as well; if people earn your trust, they can be upgraded a few places on the scale. And people who have lost your trust can earn it back slowly without you taking overt political and relationship risks.
Relationships are dynamic, complex things. Having a system that’s a little more nuanced than a binary friend-or-foe mentality is a great way to grow your skill in managing a wide variety of social situations.
