Let me tell you friend.  I am great at passing judgment.  I am great at complaining and seeing areas of weakness.  My team can and will tell you that no one is ever good enough.  No one measures up, including me.  There are continually opportunities to get better and when we get better, there are still more ways to get better.

In conjunction with my observation that there are people who are intrinsically action oriented versus extrinsically action oriented is an observation on how differently these two people groups respond to complaining.  When I go into a diatribe related to pretty much anything within earshot of an intrinsically action oriented person, they listen intently and begin thinking about how to fix it before I finish griping.  Then, by the time I get finished, they are ready run, then commence getting to work fixing things.  If I go into the same diatribe in direct conversation with an extrinsically action oriented person, they can listen to me rail, agree with it, and may even comment about how bad it is.  Then once its over, say “Well OK” and go about doing whatever it was they were going to do anyway.

The moral of this story is that judging others and complaining about it leaves the improvement up to the listener.  One type of person may take action, but on their own without real help from me.  All I did was kvetch.  The other type will not do anything about it.

In the worst case, if I am griping about someone to another person, there is an even smaller chance of getting the meaningful improvement I am wishing for.  I may be wishing for it by expressing the negative, but its there somewhere.

So, my May 1st resolution: Stop Judging, Start Helping!  Well, a better, more honest answer would be to stop JUST judging and start helping.  I may never be able to stop having high expectations and measuring people, including myself against those.  However, instead of continually complaining about it, I can be more intrinsically action oriented myself by doing something about it.  In the best cases I will take that action as close to immediately as possible.  The moment I want to complain, take an action to help the person I want to complain about with whatever I am complaining about.  In some ways it sounds just like replacing a bad habit with a good habit.

And maybe since I made this resolution on May 1st instead of January 1st it will be more lasting than most New Year’s Resolutions!?