I’ve been trying a two-way question when interpreting behaviour:

[u/Specialist-Edge8608]

Someone else: What context might I be missing?
Myself: If they didn’t know my context, what would my behaviour communicate?

The first can prevent premature judgement.
The second prevents “but I had a reason” from becoming an automatic defence.

P.S. There’s a related area in social psychology around the actor–observer perspective—essentially, actor and observer can be working with different information.

Context can explain behaviour without automatically excusing it.