The Voice In My Head Isn't Always Right

A mindfulness practice that keeps my experience from making up my mind before a conversation even starts.

Hi Friend,

Twenty years in HR has given me a lot of gifts. Pattern recognition is one of them... and also, if I’m honest, one of the trickier ones to carry well.

Here’s what I mean. Someone asks for time on my calendar, and before they’ve said a word, a voice in my head is already narrating. This reminds me of so-and-so. I’ve been through this before. I know how this plays out. All of it built from real experience. None of it necessarily true about the person sitting in front of me.

There’s a practice in mindfulness called beginner’s mind. The idea is to approach every experience as if it were the first time, without the weight of the story you already have about it. It’s become one of the practices I lean on as an HR leader managing conflict.

Something I’ve learned about myself is that after years of doing this work, I walk into many conversations already carrying assumptions from prior ones. About what the person will say. About what they need from me. About how the whole thing resolves. My prior experience has shaped beliefs that tell me, quite confidently, how the story goes.

Those beliefs aren’t always right.

Prior experience is useful. It helps me anticipate. It gives me context I wouldn’t otherwise have. But left unchecked, it can also close the door before the person across from me has even spoken.

So now, when I notice those signals... this reminds me, I’ve seen this before, I know how this plays out... I try to treat them as information, not instruction. I let myself acknowledge them, and then I make an intentional choice to set them down, because this conversation may or may not resemble the one my instincts are pointing to. That choice is what beginner’s mind protects.

In practice, it looks like:

• Asking more questions to get more context, even when I think I already know the answer

• Actively listening for the piece of the story I didn’t see coming

• Remembering that the person across from me is carrying their own experiences, assumptions, and biases too

Prior experience is a tool that helps me navigate conflict. Beginner’s mind is what keeps the communication, and the understanding, open.

I know this isn’t simple. Letting go of a story you’ve earned through experience takes practice, and I don’t always get there in the first minute of a conversation. But here’s where I land: the person in front of me deserves my full attention, not a rerun of my last conversation.

The views I share here are my own and do not represent any current or former employer.