Give Someone a Chance

When somebody finally tries to do things in a new way, be careful not to recast their effort as one more failure. It's tempting, because you've been let down before and bracing for disappointment feels safer than hoping. But ask yourself what you're really protecting. Is it genuinely easier to predict failure and watch it arrive than to hope for success and occasionally get burned?

A sour attitude toward a person has a way of locking them in place. You start deciding in advance how things will go, and that expectation leaks out in how you treat them. At that point real change becomes a steep climb, sometimes an impossible one, not because the person can't do it but because the room has already been read as hopeless.

Failures stand out. They're loud and obvious. Early signs of success tend to be quiet, and if you're already primed to see the worst, you'll walk right past them. The first stabs at changing a behavior are usually small and a little clumsy, and rewarding something that minor can feel like lowering the bar or letting someone off too easy.

Being "good" is often harder work at the start than staying the same. The person trying to improve may not even have a clear picture of what you'd consider acceptable. Their definition and yours might not match, and their early attempt can land somewhere short of the mark. Sometimes it can look worse than no effort at all.

Picture a husband who's been told to dress properly for a night out. In his head, appropriate means clean clothes: fresh khakis, a new tee shirt. His wife had a dress shirt or a polo in mind, maybe a jacket or a sweater over it. He shows up pleased with himself, having actually tried, and gets chewed out instead of thanked. The effort was real. It just didn't speak her language yet.

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