One Problem
Of course you remember to do that some of the time. What I am suggesting is that you do it as a habit and not on occasion. There is one obvious problem with this strategy, and it’s that people generally resist clarifying. They resist checking in with each other. Has this been your experience?
When you have attempted to clarify, have you received responses such as,
“You should have been paying attention,” or
“You should have listened the first time.”
If you have ever responded this way then understand that what you’ve done is criticize someone for clarifying with you.
Do parents ever do this to their children or teachers with their students?
Have you ever heard, “I don’t like repeating myself”?
When someone gives you an opportunity to be better understood by clarifying and you become defensive, what happens?
What do they learn about clarifying?
They learn not to do it, and that it is dangerous because it makes you mad.
Because clarification is so critical to communication, I made a point of asking neurotypicals and neurodivergents alike why they resist clarifying, and here’s what I learned. The first reason is people are generally overconfident in their own perception. They think they got it right the first time (see lesson called “Breaking free from Immaculate Perception”).
Those people still have a lot of miscommunication and misunderstandings because they do not question their own perception. Even though they are proven incorrect time and time again, it doesn’t occur to them to do anything different.
Even worse is when they blame the other person for the miscommunication. There is even a word that describes the habit of thinking you got it right, don’t need to clarify, and believe you have enough information without it. The word is assumption (see lesson “From assumption to clarification).