Pick your battles.

First, we need to pick our battles and decide if addressing a situation with someone will carry any relevance. For instance, if it’s unlikely going to change their ways, their personality or character, it may not be worth addressing because these are incredibly difficult to change in someone. All we can do is learn to tolerate their traits or address the issues carefully. 

We also have to consider if we will approach someone based on “principles” or because “they always have it their way “.

Allowing the “principle” to guide an argument is exhausting and will get us nowhere. The problem does not lie with any, but with us instead. Our tolerances may be low, or our expectations may be too high, and this drives our insatiable desire to address someone. Usually, the “principle” is petty, which is not worth compromising the relationships we have with people.

Determining a pattern.

Before raising a potential argument, we need to determine if there is a pattern forming, or if their behaviour or action was coincidental or circumstantial. This goes hand in hand with “picking our battles”.

The rules for determining a pattern are:

Once is circumstantial. We need to determine that whatever the person is doing is circumstantial, where a series of events aligned and contributed to the reason they behaved in a certain way. 

Twice is coincidental. Their behaviour may have occurred out of coincidence. However, it could be a precursor to a pattern forming. 

Three times is a pattern. A pattern may form, but we still have to consider the events that may have caused their actions to unfold. 

If they do something wrong, then there is a pause, and they do it again. This is just erratic behaviour and not necessarily a behavioural pattern. 

It could be misalignment and may not be aware of knowing what they are doing is wrong. We should not assume “that they should know better” either, as this places us in the position of relying on our assumptions.

Having an unbiased approach to give the benefit of the doubt, without being naïve, we may find the problem may solve itself if we do not place too much emphasis on their behaviour.

The three steps to determine patterns do not apply to every situation, such as theft, addiction, abuse, betrayal, infidelity or criminal behaviour, all of which will create disastrous consequences. These are fundamentals that should be a standard for anyone who has adhered to a relatively decent and moral upbringing.

However, assuming that their behaviour is not likely to cause serious consequences such as violence, incarceration or trauma, we will stick to other circumstances instead, such as bad habits, intolerances, poor behaviour or crossing boundaries.

When boundaries become “violated”, or there seem to be “bad habits” forming, we often jump to conclusions and rely on assumptions.

For instance, if someone does something out of the ordinary, or out of line, we call these “red flags”. We then take these red flags and make a conscious decision to act upon through assumption before we have enough information. If their behaviour was circumstantial or even coincidental, our assumptions could cause negative consequences.

Often, this is the case where we will automatically assume the worst, which is usually wrong 99% of the time. We may even rely on our “gut”. But gut-feeling is what we feel when we are uncertain. Oddly enough, a “bad gut feeling” seems to dissipate when we have all the facts correctly correlated and think with logic.

Although as the saying goes “where there is smoke, there is fire” might sound applicable, but smoke can only become fire if we fan it into flames.

They might not know any better, be ill-informed or even oblivious to what their actions are causing; thus, their erratic behaviour may not be intentional or malicious.

In the workplace, our relationships or social environments, people will do things that annoy, disappoint, hurt or leave us with doubts. Therefore, we need to detect if it is a pattern first before assuming and ending up making rash decisions.

Timing is everything.

If we have determined it is a pattern and we want to confront someone, we need to prepare our argument and bring it up when they do it again. Waiting until a day or two later, or until the next fight, will only cause further tension and can come across as a deliberate or contentious “attack” when you eventually confront someone. 

Failing to bring up the issue at the “right time” is like reprimanding a dog the following day for messing on the floor or ripping up your favourite shoes.

It is confusing and will not achieve any positive results, so it is pointless.