#195| How the Most Generous Interpretation Helps Keep You Out of Overwhelm and In Control: Overwhelm, Productivity, Time Management & People Pleasing

Do you ever find yourself instantly frustrated or hurt by someone else’s behavior—at work, at home, or even over text?

In this episode, Michelle breaks down the life-changing mindset of using the Most Generous Interpretation—a way to separate someone’s behavior from who they are, so you can stop spiraling into stress and take back control of your emotions.

In this episode, you will:

• Learn how to give others the benefit of the doubt without ignoring boundaries
• Discover how to replace judgment with curiosity and calm in any situation
• Understand when to apply (and when not to apply) the Most Generous Interpretation for healthier relationships and a lighter emotional load

Press play now to learn how one simple mindset shift can help you feel calmer, kinder, and more in control—no matter how anyone else acts.

Wondering why you're overwhelmed? Take my "why am I overwhelmed" quiz to find out the source of your overwhelm, and what to do about it.

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Life can be overwhelming, but on this podcast, you'll discover practical strategies to overcome overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and negative self-talk, manage time effectively, set boundaries, and stay productive in high-stress jobs—all while learning how to say no and prioritize self-care on the Overwhelmed Worki...

Chapters

• 2:01 What MGI Really Means
• 4:21 Curiosity Over Judgment
• 5:26 Making the Bed
• 9:16 The MGI vs. Boundaries

Transcript

Michelle Gauthier: 0:00

Remember, it's the behavior, not the person.

Michelle Gauthier: 0:07

You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less. I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences. And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.

Michelle Gauthier: 0:34

Hi, friend. Thanks for joining today. Today we're going to be talking about the most generous interpretation or MGI. That is essentially using the most generous interpretation of someone else's behavior to stop you from feeling stressed out by essentially giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to tell you more about what it exactly is and how to do it, how to use it in real life situations. And then finally, we're going to talk about when to not use it because I know everyone's mind, mine included, would go to, yeah, but that can't always be the case. We can't always give someone the benefit of the doubt or the most generous interpretation. And I think that's true too. So we're going to talk about when not to use it. This episode will help you feel lighter and more in control of your own emotions when you start giving people the MGI, most generous interpretation.

Michelle Gauthier: 1:28

As with most, as is the case with most episodes, I get inspired by things that I see in my own life or in my client's life. And it reminds me, yes, I need to talk about that on the podcast. And I've had a couple things lately where I have been able to switch into the MGI version and have the most generous interpretation of someone else's behavior and noticed once again how much better I feel. And when I feel better, I can handle a situation more calmly.

Michelle Gauthier: 1:59

So let's get into it. MGI is a psychology term, and I learned about it from Dr. Becky. If you don't know who Dr. Becky is, she is a parenting psychologist and she wrote a book called Good Inside. I just saw that Time magazine named her the Millennial Parenting Whisperer. I love that. What a great title. Anyway, I heard of MGI from Dr. Becky, and I just thought that it was such a fantastic idea. She talks about it in terms of raising children, and I think it's great for parenting, but it's also great with just anyone who you run into. And the basic concept is that you separate the behavior from the person. So last week, one of my teenagers was very upset with me because you know, sometimes when you're a parent and you have to have boundaries or tell your teen or even a two-year-old, I feel like this behavior is just, it's different words and different situations, but it's the same kind of thing. Sometimes they just lose their mind. And I had to remind myself, this child, I'm trying not to use gender, this child is a very good person who made a bad choice. And so I think the first and most important point of MGI is separating the behavior, what a person is doing or saying from their identity. So when kids are little, we don't tell them you're a bad kid, right? We tell them you made a bad choice. And honestly, I still use that with my teenagers. I will say, you are such a good kid. And that was a bad choice. So let's talk about why you made that bad choice. So separating that, and I think that's really helpful to both me as a parent to remind myself, and to the child, because who of us wants to think because we've made a mistake of any kind that we're a bad person? Nobody does. So instead, in that moment, you ask yourself, why are they behaving this way? Could something else be going on? What is the most generous explanation for this behavior? What could they be struggling with? And that was definitely true of my teenager, that they were really struggling with something and the frustration was coming out in bad choices and talking to me in a way that I do not approve of. I do not approve of that message. When you use MGI, you can replace judgment with curiosity. And then you can usually get to the bottom of the situation much better. And this is just such a good reminder of like the old adage. I know my mom taught me this and my nanny used to say it too. Is you never know what's going on with someone else. And as a person who talks to people all day long who are trying to improve their lives, you just never know. Sometimes people have the hardest stuff going on. And you might just sit next to them at a soccer game or, you know, be in a work meeting with them and you just have no idea what's going on with most people. So let's think a little bit about how you can use this. And I'll give you some examples of using it in different places of your life. So again, that the real key is just to in the moment you see someone's behavior or you hear the words that they say and you pause and think, what is the most generous interpretation I could have of this person's behavior? In friendships, you know, when you're in adult friendships and sometimes you text someone or you ask them if they want to do something and you just don't hear back from them, or they say no a bunch of times in a row, your default could be something like, she's just ignoring me, or she doesn't want to hang out with me, or what did I do to make her angry? But if you switch that to being curious, like what else could this behavior mean? What's the most generous interpretation that I could have for this? You might think, I bet she's probably overwhelmed or distracted. I've totally been there too. I will just wait until she gets back to me. And I just had a funny situation, actually. The handsome man friend was being very empathetic and sweet and listening to me on a Thursday night. I call it Thursday night tired. There's something about Thursday night. I'm always just so tired. It's like you've almost made it through the week. And I was just essentially in tears, like, I'm so tired. I'm in charge of everything, all my same thoughts that I go back to. And he's like, What is something that I could do to help you? Just anything, something I could do. And I was like, There's nothing. And then I'm like, you know what would be amazing if you made the bed. So he doesn't live with me, but when he stays over, he gets up after me. And there's just something about walking back into my bedroom later in the day and having a made bed that makes me really happy. And if it's just me, when I get up, I can make the bed. But if he's there, I'm obviously not going to make the bed when he's still in it. So I said, you could make the bed. That would be amazing. So the next time I went into my room, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had made the bed. And the time after that, and the time after that, and the time after that. He makes the bed every single time, like without fail. And when I look at the bed and the way that the bed is made compared to how I make the bed, there are a couple key differences. The first is there nothing is happening with the sheets at all. The sheets are just left as however they were when we slept in the bed. And he pulls the covers up over the sheets. And then I have many throw pillows that go on my bed. I think there's like five. He finds this annoying. I find this cute. And so he throws them towards the top of the bed. So we've got like the kind of rumpled comforter and then just like haphazard pillows. So what I could think in that situation is okay, he's saying he's gonna help me, but he doesn't really see me. That's not the way that I make the bed, that's not the way that I like the bed made, et cetera. But if I go to the most generous interpretation, what I could say is, that is so sweet. He made the bed. He heard me. He knows that that is one area that would make me really happy. And he made that bed for me. And you know what? Now I'm very practiced at this MGI thought. It makes me smile when I see I uh and I don't fix it, by the way. I don't fix it. And it makes me smile every time when I see those haphazard pillows, or I'll pull back the comforter at night and the sheets are like all crumpled underneath the comforter. So I made the choice to decide that that means when I see the bed made, he heard me, he loves me. And I could, if I wasn't using MGI, I could just be annoyed every single day that oh, he made the bed, but he didn't do a good job and he doesn't care about me and all the negative things that I could make that mean. The same thing can be true at work. Somebody drops the ball and you can decide that they are an unreliable person, or you could say they're really overloaded right now. So there's a million places where you can use this, but the reason why, I think it's nice because we give the other person the benefit of the doubt, but it also helps you from getting annoyed. So now when I walk in my bedroom and I see that bed made, it makes me happy, it makes me smile instead of me being annoyed with it. And that's just great for me. Okay, so now probably comes the question of Michelle, you're always talking about boundaries. What if someone is consistently having this behavior and I don't want to MGI it away? And you know what I would say to that? You're right. You shouldn't. So if you feel like there's a pattern and you're being disrespected, or at work, for example, if someone on your team just drops the ball on something and you say, okay, maybe she's just having a bad day, or maybe he had a fight with his wife this morning, or you give them the most generous interpretation. You can't just continue to do that forever. The good thing to do when you're in that situation, especially if it's with an employee or your kids or something, is say, Well, tell me about what's going on. Tell me why that happened, tell me what's going on to get curious about it. And then just know that it's still helpful for you to use MGI to try to understand what's going on with that other person and to get your brain in a calm place. And then you can ask yourself, okay, is this a pattern? For example, at the beginning, I mentioned that one of my kids was very upset the other day and very mad at me for ruining their life with boundaries. And if if one of my children talked to me like that and was that upset every single day or even once a week, I would definitely take different action. I would obviously still care about them, but I would set a boundary. I would find someone else for them to talk to. I would try to see what's going on with them. I would maybe meet with their teacher. So it's totally okay. Like the goal of this isn't to just ignore someone else's behavior and pretend it isn't happening. It's just to calm your own brain by giving them the benefit of the doubt so you can decide what to do next. So you can have a most generous interpretation and also set a boundary. It's really not about pretending everything's fine. It's just staying in your own head, your own calm brain, and refusing to let frustration turn into unnecessary suffering. So next time, and maybe it'll be even today, someone disappoints you or confuses you. Try to just ask yourself, what's the most generous interpretation of this behavior? And remember, it's the behavior, not the person. Okay, friends, that's it. I hope you have a fantastic week. If you love this episode or the podcast in general, and you would leave us a review on Apple or Spotify, that would be absolutely amazing. We continue to get more listeners, and we're currently ranked at top 1.5%. I would love to get to top 1%. That means we get shown in many more places to people who need what we're sharing here. Have a great week. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com. See you next week.