Do you react instantly to almost everything you hear, see or read about ? Our first instance of response can be quite easily misguided by our emotions and unconscious bias of judgement. Hence one’s thoughtless response to any situation could carry a risk of making mistakes, wrong decisions, unkind words and actions…
A thoughtless reactive action can be costly and the impact severe, such as:
Loss of money due to thoughtless responses to scam calls or messages that get one excited about making a lot of money because of greed…
Loss of jobs due to anger reactions and quitting jobs in the spur of the moment when dealing with seemingly unreasonable bosses…
Loss of friendships due to misunderstanding by reacting to rumours or gossip without clarification and deep listening…
Loss of harmonious relationships due to anger reaction to one’s mistakes or reacting with blame when things go wrong…
How To Avoid A Thoughtless Response
To manage and avoid a thoughtless response, I find the following guiding points helpful in my practice and hope it is useful for you too:
1. If it is a verbal response, take a deep breath and count for at least three seconds, before responding to any situation.
2. If it is a team setting that is getting very intense, excuse yourself from the room for a few minutes to take a breather.
3. If it is a written response, do not send the first draft response immediately as it could be charged with emotions, allow it to hold for at least ten minutes and reread before sending.
4. If it is a crucial situation that warrants an immediate action, approach with patience and kindness. You would then naturally want the best outcome for all parties.
Natural Beauty Of Dew Drops
Learn to practise mindfulness to enhance your self awareness, this can help with the unconscious bias of judgement in your response. A late response is better than a thoughtless one.
Link to my earlier post here Be In The Now, Enjoy The Beauty for some simple tips.
Lyn
Great tips Lyn! Sometimes words spoken fast without thinking causes irreversible hurt, both to children and adults. Good reminder to think, digest b4 reacting. Thanks for sharing!
Yes, we are so busy and overloaded with information these days that sometimes we are just in a hurry to get things done without much planning and thoughts. Just have to keep reminding ourselves to pause…
Thanks for sharing Lyn. As a leader you demonstrated patience, thoughtfulness and compassion – so much to learn from you!
You are very kind SR… so happy to know my readers find my sharing meaningful and helpful to their lives…
Good advise…wish we learn all these in our younger days..but still not too late..lastly be humble and be daring to say sorry when we are wrong..
Thank you Daniel ! Like you say, never too late… I am for sure a very reactive person and have to keep reminding myself to pause… hope my sharing here can reach out to more readers to serve as a reminder and/or a learning for all.
Hi Lyn, agree. When u are in control of your reactions, u can better evaluate current situations, see better solutions and establish rapport with others. Yeah the breathing technique helps us to slow down and see clarify how to respond and to act. Just a sharing. Yesterday I felt angry and upset with my hubby. Before I said anything that I might later regret, I remembered your breathing technique. I took a deep breathe and counted slowly to ten. It helped me calm down.
Indeed there is a better way of communicating the issue. Thank u Lyn, you mentioned the importance of practicing mindfulness in order to communicate better with others. Practicing mindfulness can reduce stress, improve our overall mental health and avoid emotional outbursts. Power of listening is another best communication tool too. Ask about people’s reasoning or thinking rather than jump and tell them what they did wrong. And listen.
Thank you Eliza for sharing your personal experience, very much appreciated… It really makes me happy that my readers will find my articles interesting and helpful to their lives. I particularly like your added points on how practising mindfulness can help reduce stress and avoid emotional outbursts. So true !
Lyn, Thank you.
First to read your article , laughed out loud and fell to sleep. I worked on building sites for 3 decades and was nicknamed ‘Firecracker’ by builders in United Kingdom, No shame to tell that I stormed out of site meetings many times, in Singapore, UK, Germany, Malta, LA, New York . They only happened after I had given more than 3 chances to my colleagues. Such is called breaking point under pressure when I had to hand over a building to the hotel operator. Hahaha,,I dont have to be in that situation again. Now, I am trying to do good and indeed extremely patient . Sadly, not an easy task to keep calm in this world of uncertainty.
Yes, some jobs are super fast pace and high pressure where time is of essence… good that you do not have to be in that kind of environment anymore. Well done in doing good and practising patience, the world does need more of this …
Absolutely. I learnt it the hard way. I religiously follow point 3 & point 1 now.
I learnt it the hard way too Sai and happy that we can share our experience with my readers here to avoid the same pitfall…
Thanks for sharing Lyn. They are all very good advice which i will constantly remind myself and put to practice.
Thank you so much ! Very happy to know you find all my articles meaningful and helpful ❤️.