By Nikki Viljoen of N Viljoen Consulting (Pty) Ltd
It is said that sometimes the people you think might kick you when you’re down, will be the very ones to help you get back up!
For me this is all about judgment and perception. You see, I think that people have perceptions about other people based on things like, the way they dress. So someone is judged by what they are wearing and the perception is that they would never assist or have the empathy or compassion to help a fellow human being! How bizarre!
I believe that perception is how facts are interpreted and that if those facts are not looked at in their entirety then they are often distorted and that that is why perceptions are so often skewered.
I am often amused at the way that others see me, for example. As an Internal Auditor, there seems to be an expectation of how I should behave, how I should dress and on some levels, even how I should think. That expectation is never met when they actually meet me and dare I say it, get to know me and that can cause a huge amount of confusion.
You see, often people think that I should be a quiet, shy introvert who dresses very conservatively and who thinks inside the box. The reality of the situation is that although I am an introvert, I am really not the shy or quiet – I say what I feel and tell it ‘like it is’. I am a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl and for me thinking in or out of the box is not an option – there is no box! I mean think about it for the moment – logically speaking, would you expect every single Internal Auditor on the planet to look, behave and think in exactly the same manner? If you really had to stop and think about it, I really don’t think that anyone would actually think like that and yet the expectation persists.
I think that we as individuals have to change our mindsets and our judgments and drop the blinkers, allowing ourselves to really look and see a person for who and what they are, instead of just making a judgment call before all the facts are in. I have no doubt that if we allowed this to happen, we would no longer be amazed to receive help and assistance from people who we ‘thought’ would kick us when we were down.
Give people the benefit of the doubt and allow them to be who they actually are, rather than who you perceive them to be.
Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or www.viljoenconsulting.co.za
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