We think we know the sound of our own voice but our friends and family know our own voices better. As our ears are positioned behind our mouth, we hear our voice from a completely different perspective, that’s why it can be so strange to hear a recording of ourselves talking.
The same is true with how we see ourselves. We look differently compared to how we see ourselves in a mirror. We are familar with the inverted, mirror image of ourselves, not the reality of how others see us.
Because we spend little time looking at ourselves, other people see us more accurately than we see ourselves. They see the microexpressions and nonverbal forms of communication that we may not be aware we are making. Maybe we tend to avoid making eye contact, or roll our eyes when others are talking….unless someone tells us, we could spend our whole lives not realizing how others perceive us.
Daniel Kahneman wrote that it is easier to spot the flaws in others, than our own. In what other areas might our friends know more about us than we know about ourselves?
At the start of ever year, I think of a New Year resolution to help give me direction throughout the year.
At the start of this year I was having a conversation with a friend: and I said: “I realize that goals are personal, but they can also be an opportunity to discover new things....hypothetically if you were to give me a goal for 2024, what would it be?”
After a few days, my friend responded:
Asking a friend to suggest a goal shows them that you value their opinion and it also provides an opportunity for them to join you on the journey of that goal, keeping you accountable and providing a source of connection when you chat.
Our friends see us from a different perspective, they notice things that we don’t notice about ourselves and they provide a unique vantage point to suggest a goal that you may have never thought about before.
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