“Everything in life cannot and should not be seen in only two different shades of color. There is no truth in defining things in black and white since there are so infinitely many different underlying factors for each action performed by each person. Narrow-mindedness is for the socially detached individual.”
Early In my professional life, I consistently had a rigid way of thinking and my narrow perspective impacted how I treated my employees. I had a tendency to see things in neat little categories, such as “good or bad”, “right or wrong”, “perfect or awful”, “intelligent or stupid”, “always or never”, “love or hate”, or “with us or against us”. These are examples of using extreme opposite positions, and when you use these words, this often results in further polarizing and solidifying your thinking. When you choose to view or describe things in a narrow or extreme perspective, you ignore the nuances of your experiences.
Shades of Gray Thinking
There are many ways to view your experiences; rigid black-or-white or ambivalent shades of gray. Shades of Gray thinking is to dig deeper into a position and recognize the nuances of your experiences or someone’s viewpoints. Once I started recognizing shades of gray, I became a better business owner and treated people with more respect. I no longer labeled my employees and made an effort to identify and appreciate their unique strengths.
Why is Seeing shades of gray a better way of thinking?
A hard line stance can be prudent in some areas of your life; however, most areas in life can benefit from seeing shades of gray. Our life experiences are usually not as bad as they seem or as good at it originally appears. Seeing shades of gray is a good approach for recognizing the unique mixture of both positive and negative qualities of life. This allows for you to look beyond one extreme possibility and promotes a rational, honest viewpoint.
Benefits from Seeing Shades of Gray:
Appreciating other viewpoints
Recognizing the gray area in statements is an effective strategy to understand a person at higher level and appreciate their opinion.
Improving interpersonal relationships
By valuing different viewpoints, you show friends, family, or colleagues that your decisions or opinions are not founded on a rigid position. When people feel appreciated and respected, they will feel more comfortable approaching you and this is favorable for establishing better relationships.
Promoting empathy
Appreciating another person’s viewpoint helps promote empathy, the ability to understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions.
Improving how you interpret experiences
The world is highly complex and exploring the nuance and complexity of experiences will improve how you define your life and create a new reality.
Improving mental health
Research has shown that extreme, often negative thoughts, have a tendency to stick to us much longer than positive emotions and can adversely impact our mental health. Shades of Gray thinking reduces or eliminates having extreme, emotionally charged thoughts. Your reality and emotional state will be improved by changing how you interpret your experiences and relationships.
Improving decision making process
Being open minded and appreciating the nuances of every situation can help you fully understand your options and improve decisions.
Improving creativity
Seeing the nuances in every situation helps spark creativity. The very act of looking for nuances and subtle differences will help promote creative thinking.
“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”
Tips to Promote Shades of Gray Thinking
Tip 1: Spot and avoid using exaggerated words
Using words like hate, failure, loser, never, and can’t to describe experiences can cause limited thinking, hurt your self-confidence or lead to extreme feelings. If you spot yourself speaking or thinking this way, challenge yourself to change your vocabulary. The change will be rewarding and you train yourself to think more openly.
If you catch yourself thinking or using emotionally charged words, take a moment to reflect and determine if your description is grounded in reality or an extreme, emotional point of view. These words are likely a habit and you will need to catch yourself to break the pattern.
Tip 2. Separate your ego from your opinions
Seek out differing opinions and be comfortable when people disagree with you. Yes, life would be easier if everyone was on the same page, but progress and development would suffer. By valuing and appreciating what can come from disagreements, you will begin to see the benefits of a different perspective.
Repeat this quote when you want a reminder of the importance of differing opinions:
“When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.”
Tip 3. Learn to be comfortable with the unknown
Incorporating shades of gray thinking can be enjoyable and promote growth. It is okay to not have all of the answers and recognize that you are still learning. Shades of gray thinking actually compliments having a growth mindset. By enjoying and appreciating the nuances of the world, this will further promote enthusiasm for learning.
Tip 4: Use questions to help change your patterns
Every person needs to reflect and determine what degree of truth there is in your thoughts or statements. Having certain thoughts or making statements about your experiences doesn’t make them true. An intentional approach for challenging your perspective and considering other alternative viewpoints will break down the “black and white thinking” cycle. Since negative or extreme thoughts are shown to stick around longer than positive thoughts, an effective approach to change your patterns is to use questions.
Sample Questions to help you break patterns of thinking:
-Is there someone I can ask to draw from their perspective?
-Can I explore other words to describe a person or my experiences?
-What in my life can I feel gratitude or appreciate today? Once you learned everything you need from a thought or experience, feeling gratitude is an effective strategy to break negative or black and white thinking patterns.
-Can I be an intelligent person and still occasionally do something stupid?
-Can I love my significant other and still get angry with them at times?
-Can a part of my life be difficult now but my future will get easier?
-Can some parts of an experience be fun and other parts be less enjoyable?
-Can my significant other love me and be insensitive at times?
Final Thoughts:
Seeing shades of gray is an effective way to improve how you interpret your experiences and leads to a positive impact on your career, relationships and personal life. Opening your mind to the nuances of the world will help you appreciate the unique viewpoints of people and the many possibilities life has to offer. If you want support to improve your way of thinking, I encourage you to share this post with a trusted friend and ask them to hold you accountable and keep you on track. Good Luck!
