Eight Reasons Your Apologies Seem Insincere
An apology is an acknowledgement of offense, and remorse for an action.
I'm Sorry
An acknowledgement without remorse is not an apology, it is a simple acknowledgement of action.
Sorry is not for when you bump into a healthy person at a grocery story, when you were too loud at the library, or when you follow it with a shrug. Regret and remorse are heavy. One can feel a little bad, or even a lot bad and still not be sorry.
When you take the time to apologize for an action, it is important, because of the heaviness of what an apology is, to be sincere. Here is a list of eight nuances that make your apologies seem insincere.
You Say But
"Im sorry but..." Everything that follows your but makes is so that your words are not an apology. "But" is a contrasting word, it is used to negate something. I like the sunshine but it bothers my eyes. The but makes it seem like the sunshine maybe isn't so awesome, it contrasts it.
Apologies should be very clear, don't contrast them with but.
You follow your apology with a suggestion of action
"Im really sorry that I stepped on your toe, maybe next time you shouldn't put your toe where it can be stepped on."
If you can clearly see what the other person could do differently so that they can protect themselves from your actions than your apology loses its remorse factor.
If only you'd stayed out of my way
If you would have acted nicer
You shouldn't have been doing that
You know I don't like it when you
If you are sorry, then you are sorry. The other person should not have to acknowledge their wrong as a part of your atonement.
You make excuses for your behavior
Are you acknowledging your remorse or are you excusing yourself of your actions? They are two different things. Giving an excuse or a reason to why you acted the way you did is not the same as acknowledging remorse and regret for the action.
I was drunk
I was running late
I just wasn't thinking
I was taught to do things that way
The heaviness of the reasons for your actions are not the burden of the person you are apologizing to. You are apologizing to a person, not trying to gain empathy from them.
If you are in a relationship and after the apology, once the other person has been healed and cared for, you wish to share your background, that is good and healthy. Including it in the same sentence as your apology however makes your apology be watered down and insincere.
You expect an acknowledgement or acceptance of your apology
Expecting something from the person you are apologizing to puts burden on the person being apologized to. It makes the apology about you and not about the action that was committed.
The person you are apologizing was already hurt, perhaps ridiculed, or worse. They don't owe you anything. They don't even need to acknowledge that they heard you or read your letter or accepted your remorse.
If you are in a relationship then there will have to be a certain acknowledgement, give the person the space they need to move forward before proceeding.
You don't offer restorative justice
Chances are that whatever you broke cannot be fixed. You should still try.
Restorative justice is highly personal to the offense. The aim is to restore what has been broken. Things like trust are tricky. Theft is a little easier to deal with. Space and time to heal may be important too.
When restoring what you have broken, keep in mind to make it about the person who was hurt and not about yourself.
A husband who yells at his wife, brings her flowers to apologize, and then yells at her for not watering them is clearly not getting the gist of restoring the situation. Are you understanding? Are you offering a solution that requires the other person to put in some work? Perhaps that husband should be coming home with flowers, preparing a vase for them finding a beautiful place to display them, checking on their water levels, tending to the aging ones to make the whole bouquet last longer, then finally throwing the old flowers out and putting the vase back away.
Perhaps the husband has to do this more than one time?
To make your apology seem sincere you must at least try to restore the issue without causing the person you are apologizing to undue work.
You gloss over the incident
If you don't think your offense was all that bad then you probably are not in the space of apologizing, you are in the space of acknowledging that you did something not so cool. It is not the same thing.
It could be worse
Its not that bad
At least I didn't
If its not that bad, and you state so during or after your apology, then your apology seems insincere. Because it is.
You give the person a healing timeline
When you hurt someone or derail them, you don't get to choose how long they need to heal.
I did that a long time ago
I was a different person
It was a different time
A person should be able to forgive themselves for their actions, but that doesn't mean that the person they committed the actions to has to forgive time. While its not healthy to stay in a life situation where you have to constantly remember and be reminded that you did something bad, its not sincere to give the person who was hurt a timeline on when they should be done with their healing.
You don't have to stick around in a relationship until the hurt is fully healed (maybe they will never be able to get over the offense), but it is necessary, if your apology is sincere, to leave them with enough time, energy and resources to fix themselves as best as possible.
Sometimes you do stuff bad enough to break something, while you don't have to stick around and live in the sorrow, you can't expect the person who was hurt to move from the pain as fast as you do, or at all.
Your body language, tone or eye contact contradict you
If you are giving a sincere apology, your whole body must be sincere. If you are mentally crossing your fingers behind your back, if your inner self is rolling its eyes to the back of its head, if your whole being isn't apologizing, then your apology comes across as insincere. While the person being apologized to may not be able to put a finger on what it is that makes your apology be insincere, they will feel it.
A huge factor for insincere apologies comes from our misunderstanding of what an apology is. Remember that an apology is not the same as an acknowledgement of action. An apology includes remorse.
Thank you for stopping by my blog today and reading my opinion. Id love to hear you opinions in the comments..
This post was great! I agree with you that our body language + tone + eye contact is a right formula for sincere apologies. NLP practitioner normally has this ability to identify any deception just by looking at an eye movement! :)
Eye movement does tell a lot about people's honestly levels. Their handwriting too!
Thanks for stopping by.
My pleasure @metzli ;)
This is truly educational post. This post contains eight relationships. Which can give a full life to a man..... Many many thanks, For such an educational post.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by metzli from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.
This is superb, @metzli!!! Would u add the tag #education and #ocd-resteem? sndbox-alpha is looking for quality education and science posts this month. I think you surely have met the words requirement but they usually would curate with three photos and above. So not sure if you will get noticed even more ! Anyway, I will resteem this on my blog!!!
Thank you! I was not aware of those tags. I will add them now.
Most welcome @metzli, hope you get featured or get curated :)
Upvoted, resteemed, and following!
I have one to ask you about. It is sometimes said to me, and it bothers me, doesn't feel real. I'm not sure if I am being overdramatic though.
example:
"I'm sorry you feel that way"
"I'm sorry you see it that way"
thoughts?
That’s not dramatic. Those type of apologies annoy me too.
They are not apologies at all.
I think it comes from a “customer service” mindset where we want to be polite even if you don’t agree with people. It’s also a way to dismiss a person.
Those sentiments are more people feeling sorry for you then people being sorry about something.
If I were to re-write this article, I would include “I’m sorry you’s”
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Agree with every single one.
Though this has made me think of a someone who did something really hurtful many, many moons ago. Over time (like 10 years), with social media we started communicating again. The incident has never been discussed. We meet, we laugh, we hug each other and we only talk of the good things.
But having said that, I honestly would take any kind of "Sorry" for what happened because it tells me you acknowledge that it hurt me. But right now, there is no closure and sometimes it can be a little weird... haha
Oh, and in case you are wondering, it is a pretty big thing and many mutual friends and acquaintances knew of it. (and no it is not a man, more like a partnership on a project)
I don’t think an apology is what you are looking for as much as an acknowledgement. An acknowledgement is much lighter and doesn’t require sorrow or regret.
I wondered about time lines and and late apologies while writing this article. At what point does one let go of a wrong without apologizing? I remember an incident with a person who was part of a 12 step program. Part of their healing process was to apologize to people they had wronged. I was gaining perspective from the person that was being apologized to. The person being apologized to felt cornered into having to listen to a lengthy (yet sincere) apology.
The person in this case who had been hurt had moved on and having to listen to an apology just made them a further tool for the person. Now they were a tool used for somebody else’s healing, it stole their time, it disrupted their peace momentarily and it made them relive uncomfortable events and nothing was restored. The relationship was no longer appropriate. The closure gained by the apology only helped the person apologizing.
Perhaps the person feels uncomfortable bringing back a shady past? I don’t know, maybe they’re just jerks.
Now that I've said it out loud (and my goodness, it is going to be on the blockchain forever in a few days)...I definitely don't want any lengthy apology because I am not angry or upset anymore... More curious to know how she has processed the whole thing in her head....but am going with let sleeping dogs lie..... Hey thanks @metzli
Wow! Wonderful piece of write up!
Thank you :)
I appreciate you stopping by.
Thanks for sharing this, really good pointers and straight forward!
Thanks for stopping by.
it should be applicable for all situation..say "No"..it was not possible for me..i didn't do this..when anyone could tell anything,i was not agree in hearty ,but don't express it ..it is a common lacking for me..i fall in partition..
how could i leave on it??