How psychological blind spots Are sabotaging your personal and professional relationships

5 min read

Psychological blind spots are aspects of our personality or behavior that we fail to recognize or acknowledge, often because they are unconscious. These blind spots can inadvertently sabotage personal and professional relationships in various ways:

Personal Relationships

Poor Communication:

Assumptions: Blind spots can lead to assumptions about others' thoughts, feelings, or intentions, causing misunderstandings or internalization of the behavior. These false assumptions are often derived from beliefs created in childhood or through painful experiences. However, when these beliefs don’t hold true for every situation or person, then we have failed to recognize that we are getting in our own way.
Unexpressed Needs: If you're unaware of your own needs or emotions, you might not communicate them effectively, which can lead to frustration and resentment. Sometimes if we lack awareness of our needs we can express them adversely through projections, blame-shifting, stonewalling, or worse manipulation. 2. Conflict Resolution:

Defensiveness: Not recognizing your own role in conflicts can lead to defensiveness, making it hard to resolve issues constructively. When someone is defensive they are often operating from their unresolved wounds. This can lead to reactive responses that are driven by ego and emotion, rather than logic and value.
Blame-Shifting: Blind spots can cause you to blame others for problems instead of acknowledging your own contributions. When we have the ability to recognize our own psychological blind spots then we can resolve disconnections much quicker without creating resentment and distrust. 3. Empathy and Understanding:

Lack of Empathy: If you're unaware of how your actions affect others, you may struggle to empathize with their experiences, leading to emotional disconnection. Emotional disconnection if often driven by chaos and the need for control, rather than mutual respect in relationships.
Invalidation: Dismissing or invalidating others' feelings can damage trust and intimacy. This can make the other person feel they aren’t a priority in the connection and lead to greater breakdowns in communication. One of the main reasons people often dissolve relationships is due to not being heard or understood by the other person. 4. Self-Awareness:

Unrecognized Patterns: Repeating harmful patterns (e.g., choosing similar unhealthy relationships) without recognizing the underlying causes. Almost everyone has some sort of childhood wound because no parent is perfect, yet it is our responsibility to understand how our attachment style or trauma response may be showing up in our connections and whether they are hindering our relationships.
Growth Stagnation: Failure to identify areas for personal growth can prevent you from improving yourself and your relationships. Healing unresolved wounds is essential to a healthy relationship. This can be a lifelong journey of elevation and growth in becoming emotionally free.

Professional Relationships

Leadership and Management:

Micromanagement: Not recognizing a need for control can lead to micromanagement, stifling team autonomy and innovation. When someone attempts to exert control and dominance over others they are often conveying they don’t trust this person to perform. However, this can be a deeper projection of them personally not trusting themselves. Rather than micromanage boundaries need to be implemented with milestones, clearly defined roles, and boundaries for operations.
Poor Feedback: If you’re unaware of your communication style, you might give unclear or demotivating feedback. Many times coworkers want a leader who has their back and values them. This requires assertive communication with mutual respect and integrity. 2. Team Dynamics:

Ineffective Collaboration: Blind spots can hinder your ability to collaborate effectively, leading to misunderstandings and reduced productivity. When team members fall short of their communication or responsibilities, this may impact the reputation of the company as a whole or the team itself.
Self-Driven: When an employee is self-driven, this can make it difficult to create fruitful relationships. They may only be focused on personal gain rather than how the team or company can increase overall productivity and revenue. Self-driven individuals usually focus on the outcome that benefits them the most in the short term, not on the longevity and sustainability of the company’s relationships. 3. Career Development:

Stagnation: Failing to recognize your own weaknesses can prevent you from seeking opportunities for development and growth. Playing it safe will make it challenging to reach our full potential. Many times if you’re stuck in a comfort zone then you have fears of failure or success that may be getting in the way. These trauma responses may show up as perfectionism, procrastination, people-pleasing, or avoidance altogether.
Networking: Blind spots in social skills or self-presentation can hinder your ability to build and maintain professional relationships. When a person lacks relationship intelligence this is an indication of low emotional intelligence. Having soft skills are necessary for nurturing long-standing valuable partnerships internally and externally within an organization. 4. Conflict Management:

Avoidance: Unawareness of conflict-avoidant tendencies can lead to unresolved issues festering and escalating. Many times if a person grew up in a home where conflict was shoved under the rug or the environment was complete chaos, today they may shy away from conflict as they fear the other person’s reactions. Unfortunately, the more we avoid disconnections often the greater the volcano becomes when it explodes.
Ineffective Mediation: Not recognizing your own biases or blind spots can impair your ability to mediate conflicts impartially and effectively. When someone is stuck in a “Me” mindset they are often unable to see solutions outside of their own agenda. This leads to impasses rather than trying to negotiate common ground while considering everyone’s unique perspective.

Overcoming Blind Spots

Self-Reflection:

Regularly engage in self-reflection to understand your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors better. This can be done through journaling, value alignment, or asking a neutral person you trust for deeper reflection. 2. Feedback:

Sometimes we cannot see our blindspots because they have been engrained in us for so long. Seek honest feedback from trusted friends, colleagues, or mentors to gain insights into your blind spots. 3. Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence:

Practice mindfulness to become more aware of your automatic reactions and develop emotional intelligence to understand and manage your emotions better. Often when we are in a reactive state we have stepped away from our value. The opposite of our emotional triggers is a value that needs to be met, such as communication, integrity, honesty, or trust. Our emotions are insights into the needs we need met; however, we will need to learn to communicate from a place of value if we want to be heard and understood. 4. Coaching:

Consider working with a coach, like us, to explore and address deep-seated blind spots. 5. Education and Training:

Engage in personal and professional development courses to improve your self-awareness and interpersonal skills. For more on professional development, please visit us here. Or check out our book, Boundary Badass which explores all of these psychological insights and more.

By actively working to uncover and address psychological blind spots, you can improve both personal and professional relationships, fostering healthier, more effective interactions.