…but are you convincing?
Few things can be more frustrating than a person who tells you what you want to hear, but fails to persuade you that they mean it. You know, those times when you’re looking a person in the eye and you hear them saying all the right things; and yet, in your deepest being you know that person is manipulating you and has no intention of backing up their words with corresponding actions.
We all want to believe what others are telling us. What’s amazing to me is that many of us will go to great lengths to convince ourselves that the person intends to do what they say, even when our personal experience with them indicates otherwise. We pride ourselves in having given them the benefit of the doubt.
How many times are we expected to give the inconsistent ones among us the benefit of the doubt?
The best action to take for everyone involved is to give yourself the benefit of the doubt and trust your experience with those who say one thing and habitually do another. You’re not the one with the problem. Unless of course you so choose.