React versus Respond
Posted on January 07, 2023 by Magdolin Boukhary, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Are you reacting & regretting your actions?
Do you say wrong thing in situations that rile you up?
Situations get worse because of how you react?
Lately as I was sitting in a coaching session as an Observer and the client’s goal was that “she wanted to be able to control her response towards others.”
Throughout the session I heard words such as; underestimate, abuse, undermine, demotivate and more…
This struck a light bulb to flicker in me as a I realized that I was the exact same, yet I always failed to admit it out loud not even to myself.
I sat down and contemplated her words and my personal experience and struggle.
Many of us immediately react towards people during face to face interactions or through other channels such as emails and texting and these people in many cases are not stranger but rather close such as family, friends and coworkers which makes the damage harder to repair.
When we react, we don’t think!
We need to take a deep breath, digest and think of the consequences as we get emotionally charged, hurt, angry and much more.
To be able to respond to need to disarm toxic people; the abusive, the narcissistic, the projective and those that gaslight or undermine our being and much more.
Toxic people are coming from a place that is insecure, does not project self love, self confidence and no true sense of self worth and so they release that pressure off themselves on to us in various forms.
This is not a true reflection of you but themselves.
On the other hand, your reactions are a reflection of you and so they distract our focus by pushing our buttons.
Are situations within our control? No…
However, how we respond between our stimulus and reaction is a choice we make.
We have to learn how to make the right choices. Take a step back and recognize people’s behavior, because they know what to say and how to say it to you.
I am not saying that one should not stand up for themselves but do it wisely, maturely and healthily.
Evaluate the situation and consider your values to maintain self-control before you react to enabling your influence towards your outcome and envision the consequences.
Take a deep breath and then respond
