Assume Positive Intent

Assuming positive intent is a powerful mechanism that paves the way for new opportunities. It’s about embracing optimism and choosing to nurture the positive aspects over the negative ones. It’s simple enough to change your life and increase your surface area of luck. It’s the path of the infinite learner, one that chooses that in every instant of life, there is an opportunity for growth.

Failing to assume positive intent can be caused by a lack of empathy. It’s much easier to assume positive intent when you can empathize with one another and have a greater understanding of the underlying communication patterns that occur. Frequently people think someone is out to get them because they misunderstand what is being said. If there’s anything that frustrates me, it’s problems oriented around communication.

A helpful mental model to use is Hanlon’s razor, stating that we should not attribute malice to what is more commonly explained by stupidity.

Assuming bad intent can often be expressed as cynicism. It may sound relatively harmless, but given enough energy it’ll start to corrode you and the people around you. Being cynical is an easy path to becoming unhappy. Instead, decide to find the good in a situation and use that good to create an even better situation. It’s amazing what can happen when someone takes a jab at you or directly tells you what you’re bad at and instead of deflecting it you channel it into self-improvement. It can feel uneasy at first and you’ll become defensive, but it will only get easier and you’ll become better.

A lot of assuming positive intent is being positive. Analogous to this is to decide to not be in situations where there is obviously negative energy and to more importantly not be friends with cynical people. The power of negativity is stronger than positivity and therefore it’s very important to surround yourself with other positive and ideally optimistic people.