Intention vs. Impact. I'm not expert on it, but from many life experiences both successful and challenging ones, I've gained a perspective as to what intention vs. impact does to a person.
"I didn't intend to do that".
"That wasn't my intention".
"They must of interpreted it wrong".
"It was a miscommunication".
All things I've heard and things I've said in the past and not saying that those phrases are invalid, but as I've grown and learned more I realized that that does not mean you get a free pass.
Free pass? As in, thinking that just because it wasn't your intention you can continue going on with your life not feeling bad or feeling any sense of empathy towards what impact you had on that person(s). Not intending something doesn't mean that you can say whatever you want without any conscious thought as to what it can be interpreted or internalized as. You don't get to feel like it's okay or it's whatever because that person didn't understand clearly or misunderstood what you were really trying to say. When you say those phrases, you are immediately blaming the person who was impacted badly for not understanding or receiving your intention. You immediately take away any responsibility from yourself and put the weight on the receiving person for not reacting the anticipated way. This is where you can either explain further for better understanding, or you can be more sensitive and understanding as to what the impact was and assess how you can have a conversation about it, and work towards a better, more positive impact.
People won't always understand what your true intentions or meaning is behind what you say or what you do. People won't always receive what you say easily regardless of how "nice" or "respectful" you formulated your thoughts. People won't always separate "business" from "personal" when trying to give, what you see as, "constructive criticism" or "feedback". Though they should, that's not always the case.
I've experienced and have seen many people rubbed the wrong way, becoming unmotivated and discouraged when people say things that are hurtful, but wasn't "meant" to be hurtful. People may say things with "good intentions" and may think they are saying what's "best" for someone, but there's never a true guarantee that the person receiving the information will agree. What you say can leave a harmful, toxic, and offensive impact. Just because you didn't "mean" for something to come off as aggressive, offensive, or rude doesn't mean that's not what you did. Not "meaning" something shouldn't be used as an excuse to just let something hurtful just slide by. Intention is not a free pass to go around saying things that you don't "mean" and hope for the best that people won't get hurt.
We need to be more conscious of what we say and how people react or receive what we say. We can always play scenarios in our head, rehearse a scary situation over and over, assume what the person might respond with, etc., but regardless of what you come in thinking, what comes out of the situation can be very different -- and we need to be mindful of that. When someone takes it in negatively or is hurt by it, rather than reactively negatively back --- take a step back and assess, why?
Why are they reacting that way?
I thought I said this as nicely as possible?
I don't think they understood what I was trying to say?
Why are they impacted by what was said or did even if it wasn't the intention? We can always have good intentions at heart, but it is true that people need to start acknowledging that our good intentions or what we think is good for someone to know won't always turn out so good.
Moving forward, I am just advising you to be more conscious and careful with what you say to others, knowing that there could be a surprising impact. Not saying be constantly paranoid of what you say and feeling like everyone will react badly to everything you say. Not saying that some people won't actually understand your intention. Just saying that if we make more effort to being sensitive and understanding towards others regardless of the way things are received, then we can be more conscious of how we treat others and what we say to others. This can definitely improve relations and can teach one to be more aware of how we communicate with others. Just take some time to really think and assess what you say based on the person, situation, environment, etc. prior to just spatting out whatever you want to say. This can definitely help prevent any fires in your relationships or in your work space. Let's all be more aware of our impact instead of hiding behind our intentions.
