Ep 033: How and Why We Label Others (and how to stop) #1 of 2

Today, I want to talk about LABELS because it holds so many of us back in our careers and lives. 

So let’s start by discussing the definition of labeling. 

For psychologists, labeling is defined as a way of compartmentalizing people based on attributes, situations, or behaviors. This happens in families, groups and society as a whole.

As humans, our need to label runs deep. 

It goes back to our primitive or reptilian brain, the part of our brain that’s evolved over the Millenia. The part that’s responsible for self-preservation.   

So, for our caveman ancestors, this ability to quickly sort people and situations into categories was super helpful. 

Lion equals danger. 

Member of opposing tribe equals caution.

It helped them avoid danger and gave them a sense of control because the instantaneous labeling of a person or situation gave them a way to predict what MIGHT HAPPEN and specifically, whether or not it could cause them harm. And once they assigned that label, it helped them categorize similar future things in the same way. Thereby preserving their safety and ensuring survival of the species.

Psychologists say that our tendency to label begins in infancy and continues as we grow and develop. 

So, it’s programmed in. A product of our environment, family, friends, schooling, socio-economic status, societal views and more. 

But unlike our caveman ancestors, this primal need to ‘label’ is not so helpful to modern man because it causes us to make SNAP JUDGMENTS that don’t always serve us or others. 

Yet we do it all the time.

That driver who cut you off in traffic on the way to work, you might label a ‘bad driver.’

That colleague who’s always up on and sharing the latest rumors, you might label ‘toxic.’

That boss who’s constantly changing their mind, you might label a ‘bad manager.’

Labeling is an extreme form of all or nothing thinking. Because when we assign labels, we’re over simplifying. That person or experience is either THIS or THAT. When in reality, it’s usually BOTH or MANY things.

And when we try to oversimplify people or situations, we limit them. This can have harmful side effects for ourself AND for the person we’re judging.

When we label others, we close ourselves off to ALL that someone ACTUALLY IS by narrowing in on only ONE aspect of who they are based on a specific situation we’ve experienced or behavior we’ve seen them do.

And the risk is that once we label that person, we DO NOT ALLOW ourselves to see anything else about them, when in fact there is ALWAYS MUCH MORE, we could discover about them if we were open to it.

There’s ALWAYS MUCH MORE COMMON GROUND we could find if we looked for it. If we avoided assigning the limiting label to that person and instead allowed ourselves to discover who they are in the FULLEST context. 

So, when we label, we close ourselves off to other possibilities. Because we convince ourselves that the label is all a person IS or will EVER BE. 

So, let’s say you labeled someone based on a bad experience you had with them. 

When you believe that label is TRUE, you close yourself off to believing that maybe that bad experience was just a single event. You also close yourself off to the possibility that there were other factors that contributed to how that person showed up within that experience. Factors you’re NOT aware of. 

A bad experience or an unfortunate characteristic you see about someone is not

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