A little reminder, before we dive (!!) in… If your year hasn’t started off on the right foot so far, The Journal can help you get clear on what you want from life and provide you with the tools and structure to actually get yourself there.
Combining expert coaching with simple productivity techniques, it infuses your planning with purpose – I like to think of it as the planner you finally stick to.
The picture above is from a folder on my desktop (entitled, fyi, “images to make me smile when i am sad”. I recommend everyone has one). As you can see, it shows an entire iceberg – from the relatively-tiny tip poking above the water to the hulking great mass below.
It’s a beautiful picture, and a good reminder of two things.
First, we should be taking better care of our planet.
Second, we should stop assuming we know the motivation behind other people’s behaviours.
Because we don’t.
Generally, when someone does something we disagree with, our brain creates a narrative around them and their actions. A woman cuts in front of us in a queue, we think her rude and entitled. A man shouts at us at work, we think him cruel and uncaring.
And look, those people could be all those things.
But what we see, evaluate and react to – the observable actions, words and expressions – is only the visible tip of the iceberg of a person.
We all have a huge hulking mass of beliefs, values, personality, feelings, experience and cultural and social conditioning underneath what we present in our day-today lives. We all have a myriad of motivations, reasons and sub-conscious driving factors that others know nothing about. Stuff that they may not even be able to comprehend, because many of our lived experiences differ so vastly.
This is the Iceberg Theory, coined by Ernest Hemingway, but popularised by Sigmund Freud who used the image of an iceberg to present the idea of three levels of the mind: conscious (tip), preconscious (middle) and unconscious (great big mass below). And, as I think we all know, Freud was big on the unconscious – declaring it the primary driving factor of all human behaviour.
Regardless of whether you agree with Freud on that, I’m sure we can all agree that our behaviours are manifestation of less visible factors. I am much more likely to snap at my children if I am exhausted. I am also much more likely to get angry in traffic if I have snapped at my children. And so on.
Yet my children don’t necessarily know I’m exhausted, and the car in front of me definitely doesn’t know I’ve just snapped at my children and am feeling bad about it. They just see my behaviour, and think I’m acting like a bit of a sh*t.
Which again, I probably am.
Understanding that we all have underlying fears, frustrations and real or perceived traumas, doesn’t mean you have to condone someones bad behaviour. It just gives you the opportunity to understand it. To not form a tightly held opinion, but rather to leave space around your conclusions. To appreciate that you don’t know the whole picture, that your interpretation of a situation could be wrong.
It made me think of something that happened last week while I was driving (I know, what’s with all the car references recently?!) I was waiting at some red lights when an ambulance came up quick behind me, sirens on. I pulled over to one side to make room, putting myself into the left-turning lane and some of the space allocated for cyclists. The ambulance sped past but the light remained red for a while and cars lined up behind me. I couldn’t move without a green light, so I just had to stay there, feeling judged for looking like an awful, selfish driver – blocking two lanes, encroaching on cyclists’ space. I knew I wasn’t those things, because I knew the back story. But other people hadn’t seen the ambulance, they had no idea.
They just saw the tip of the iceberg.
3 ways the Iceberg Theory can help us be better people
Increase empathy: recognising that everyone has a hidden part beneath the surface of their attitudes and behaviours can help be more empathetic and compassionate towards others and ourselves. It encourages us to understand that we don’t know everything about someones life or what might be driving their actions.
Avoid misjudgement: appreciating the hidden part of the iceberg makes us less likely to jump to hard and fast conclusions about others, which means we leave more room for understanding and different interpretations. It doesn’t mean absolving people of wrongdoing, but rather entertaining the possibility of contributing factors.
Encourage self-reflection: if we can recognise that other people have a huge amount of underlying contributing factors to their attitudes and behaviours, we can do the same for ourselves. It encourages us to question ourselves and become mindful and aware of our own triggers and the ways we think and behave.
Know someone who would enjoy learning about The Iceberg Theory? Send this on!
oh wow, I felt this deeply!!! Thank you for hitting the nail on the head, for someone who finds it so challenging to do 'nothing' but also feels overwhelmed and knackered a lot of the time because my brain hasn't dialled down.
I think about this a lot, especially when I notice that I'm judging someone. I think something harsh and then I self-check myself with a "But maybe this isn't how it really is," and I just try to be a bit more compassionate.