Why Brutal Honesty is the Best Way to Go

Brutal honesty lets you see the world from the realistic lens. Not through optimistic lens nor though pessimistic lens but through reality. Feelings have a bad habit of making things seem better or worse than they actually are. That’s living in an alternate universe, which isn’t good.

When I used to let feelings guide my decisions, I used to think that I was special. I would try to spout off my accomplishments as if people should admire or be jealous of them. As soon as I learned to stop letting feelings go too far into one extreme versus another, I became more calm and easy to get along with.

It wasn’t just towards others that I tried to make myself seem better than I actually was. I actually started to believe it as well. When I made a very great stock trade that made me tens of thousands of dollars in a single day, I felt proud. I felt ecstatic. Which usually ended up losing everything and then some the day after.

However, if I practiced brutal honesty, I would have accepted that what I did wasn’t anything special. I was experiencing an outlier effect. Just like how the stock market can go up by 10% in a single day, that isn’t the norm. A good investor just lets the huge volatility pass without feeling anything.

Once you start to control your emotions from falling too far into one extreme or the other, you will have better results. You will make rational and logical decisions instead of irrational and unpredictable ones. When you let good feelings consume you, it convinces you to take too much risks.

More risk than what you are used to. It’s only a matter of time before it ends badly.

What is Brutal Honesty?

The definition of brutal honesty is clear communication expressed in a direct, accurate, and clear way without any attempts to sugarcoat or soften the language. There’s no beating around the bush or taking feelings into consideration. The communication is what it is.

However, the most important distinction is that brutal honesty is NOT about being negative. If you’re being negative, by definition it is not honest. Honesty is about reality. Reality is what it is and you are using language that has neutral connotation related to the message.

Reality is neither negative nor positive, it just simply is. Most people think that if they are being overly harsh or negative, then it means they are honest. No, that’s just communicating in a bad manner. At the end of the day, the recipient of the message could interpret it as negative.

However, as long as that wasn’t your intent or how you actually communicated, then that is brutal honesty. It’s not always easy to see the truth and reality and communicate that to your friends or yourself. However, once you realize how to control your own emotions without letting it control you, you will experience peace and calm.

Did you really work “15 hours” today or are you counting lunch and dinner hours into it? What about the time you spent goofing off while you were waiting to get more work from your boss? Do you really have a difficult time saying that a friend’s parent member died instead of passed away?

As long as you’re not doing it in a “in your face” kind of way, your tone is neutral, and you get no pleasure out of delivering the message, that’s brutal honesty done right. People’s feelings are important but not as important as facts and the truth.

Benefits of Brutal Honesty

So now that we know what brutal honesty is, let’s get into the benefits of it. One actual benefits of it is that you get to SMASH that social share button and post to your favorite social media! One of your friends could let emotions drive their decision making process or cannot control their emotions.

This article could help them control their emotions better so that they control them and not the other way around. Some people go their entire lives without learning how to tame their own emotions. I’m glad that I found out that my emotions were consuming me and I became a much more collected person.

You could help your friends out just by clicking the share button once!

1) You get to Live on Planet Earth and Establish Authenticity

Remember that in the glass half full or half empty debate, the glass is both half empty AND half full. In the optimists vs. pessimists debate, both sides are trying to say their perspective ie better. When literally, they’re of equal importance. When you practice brutal honesty, you get to live in reality and on planet Earth.

What happens when you do this? People may not like your communication style, but they will respect your communication style. Therefore, you may not be the most liked but you will be considered authentic to people. These days, authenticity is the hardest to find with the social media filters to take the best pictures in.

You can easily stand out from the crowd in a good way by establishing yourself as a direct communicator. There’s no need to tiptoe your way around a friend’s feelings as long as all of the soft criteria is met such as a neutral tone. It saves a lot of time, headaches, and the need to figure out how to word things correctly.

2) You Actually Achieve Progress

When you take a good look at yourself and stop lying to yourself, then and only then can you achieve progress. Brutal honesty allows you to figure out where you actually need improvements. That’s why being brutally honest is good. It doesn’t sugarcoat things so that your feelings are the most important.

It places your progress above all else. Your goals. Would you rather feel good but be at a bad spot in the world or feel neutral but be at a good spot in the world? Be honest with yourself. Did you really put in the hours and effort that you said that you would?

Remember that we are less likely to achieve our goals the more we talk about it. It’s a psychological phenomenon that people use against themselves all the time. Don’t let yourself use it against you. There are so many things I felt that I achieved it just by talking about it.

Of course, I ended up not putting in the hours to get there by the end. A dose of brutal honesty would have helped me and whipped me into shape.

3) Be Happier by Managing Expectations

When you expect something and put high expectations into something that you are looking forward to, you become deeply hurt when it doesn’t work out. Things such as an interview that you thought you nailed or a project that you were sure you did a phenomenal job in.

When you are brutally honest, then the bad results don’t bother you at all. You had already accepted that while you think you did an excellent job, there’s always a chance that you could have failed. Or that there could have been a better person for the job that tagged along at the last second.

Brutal honesty gives you that freedom from high expectations. You don’t become frustrated at the results because the reality of failure was always there. It’s a way to protect and save your feelings from humiliation and frustrations. I used to have very high expectations after an interview.

These days, after an interview, I just let business go on as usual as if nothing happened. If I move forward, great, if I don’t, then that’s OK too. Rejection emails NEVER phase me out anymore.

4) The Mirror Technique Doesn’t Work

The mirror technique is when you tell yourself in the mirror how great you are every day. One day, you will magically wake up and actually believe that you have self belief and confidence. It’s a bunch of phony baloney psychology mumbo jumbo. When you tell yourself you are great when you genuinely don’t think so, it backfires.

You end up feeling worse about yourself, not better. You start to think about how you’re lying to yourself and that this is just a technique used to make yourself feel better. That you are manipulating and misrepresenting who you actually are as a person. That’s when brutal honesty can swoop in and help you.

Everyone isn’t perfect. Everyone has downsides, weaknesses, insecurities, and anything bad that you can think of. However, it’s not your weaknesses that you should focus on but your strengths. When you try to be well-rounded, you don’t become a dangerous person.

The person that everyone fears going up against your specialty for. Therefore, throw the mirror technique out the window and be brutally honesty instead. Then whatever your flaws are, accept them and look to nurturing your strengths going forward.

5) You Accept Who You Are

When you try to look yourself as better or worse than you actually are, you are looking at it from a filtered lens. Brutal honesty allows you to accept you for who you actually are. Not for who you want to be or who you think you should be. The first step to self acceptance is knowing who you actually are.

There are instances where others are wrong when they give their opinions on who they think you are. Therefore, don’t listen to them. Listen to yourself on how you see yourself. Do you see yourself as a great person? Great! Then accept that about yourself.

Do you see yourself as someone who can achieve greatness but needs a little bit of work to get there? That’s great as well. Wrk on it. It will only be a matter of time before you get to the place that you want to get to. No matter how you see yourself, brutal honesty lets you be who you are without caring about other people’s thoughts or opinions.

6) You Become the Underdog with Less Pressure

When you actually and factually correctly are the underdog, it becomes much easier to take risks when others expect you to fail. You have nothing to lose. You are free to make as much mistakes as you want because the default expectation was exactly that. More risks means more chances to succeed.

Which is great. The alternative is when people expect you to be great and be who you aren’t. Once people have enormous expectations of you, you start to feel pressure. Then when you actually fail and you fail to meet their expectations, people are very vocal to let you know how disappointed they are.

They don’t shy away about letting you know how they thought you were the next best thing but fell short. It becomes almost annoying. Then the next time that you’re up in battle, you then have an even bigger expectation to fulfill. The one that you fell short on and the one that you have to fight through presently.

Brutal honesty lets you be the underdog with no expectations so that you can take more risks to win much more.

Exception to Brutal Honesty: When Others Use it Against You

However, brutal honesty is not all sunshine, unicorns, and rainbows. There are downsides to it as well. The exception is when others use brutal honesty against you in the form of “that’s the truth”. People usually don’t know how to apply being brutally honesty well into the real world.

It’s when people defend their communication by saying that it’s “the truth” or it’s “the facts”. However, when you actually dive into their communication, it’s riddled and filled with emotional and subjective words. Then they try to pass those things off as statement of facts. Don’t let that happen against you.

By definition, facts are not supposed to elicit an emotional response. Why? It’s neither good nor bad, it is what it is. It’s a neutral term. Therefore, when someone uses brutal honesty against you and it elicits a response, ask yourself if they actually have your best interest in their heart.

The majority of the time, it is a no. Therefore, in this situation, don’t let it get to you or bother you. Brush it off as if it never happened and move on with your life. With the wonderful invention of the internet, one downside is that it created anonymity. With anonymity, people are more likely to say careless things to others.

Why? They feel like they are immune from consequences. You don’t have any idea who they are anyway, so what’t the point of carefully crafting the message? You have to thoroughly understand the other side’s incentive and perspective first before assigning any meaning to it to your life.

Understanding the other side’s position will make you do wonders for yourself. Thank goodness for “block”, “mute”, and “ignore” buttons. They are wonderful inventions.

Be Brutally Honest With Yourself

Whether privately or publicly, then the most important takeaway is that you should be brutally honest with yourself. You have absolutely nothing to gain by trying to fool and lie to yourself. There’s no need to commit fraud when you have nothing to gain. Thoroughly and factually evaluate your life.

Are there actually aspects that you wish you could change? Why don’t you make the actual steps in order to change? Do you want to lose weight? Exercise or eat less. Do you want to get a promotion? Have you really been adding as much value as you should have to earn that promotion?

Brutal honesty lets you progress towards your goals. I always knew that I wanted to lose weight. Since the start of the pandemic, I decided to lose weight and took active steps to get there. Since March 2020 to today, I lost 20 pounds so far. That’s the most that I want to lose and I don’t want to lose weight anymore.

However, I couldn’t make that decision for myself until I practiced brutal honesty. Otherwise, I would have been at an almost unhealthy weight with BMI levels closely reaching the overweight territory. People aren’t really going to care if you don’t progress through your goals.

However, you should care about your goals. Don’t try to fool yourself. You will become very good at fooling yourself and never escape the alternate universe you are living in. Emotions can be good but there are times when it can cloud your judgement and eyes through which you see the world.

You don’t want to find out decades down the road that everything you knew about the world was completely incorrect. I’ve been there and it doesn’t feel so good.