“Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.” — Italian Proverb
Throughout our days, we are constantly either responding or reacting to things that happen around us. When others say, “Good morning” to us, we normally react in the exact same way to each person. We get conditioned to certain situations. This can serve us, or it can hurt us if we become too patterned, as many people are.
This post will help you break free from reacting when you don’t need to and thus, allow you to respond the way you need to. This will allow you to take control of your life and of certain situations.
This can be critical in life-threatening situations. For example, if you are driving, and something out of the ordinary happens, you may stress out and react poorly instead of responding appropriately. If you learn the difference between the two, it can literally save your life.
For example, if the car ahead of you is in a spin, your normal reaction might be to jerk the wheel to the right. If you do this, you will probably head right in the direction of the other car. If you respond, however, you quickly assess the situation and point your car at the spin, so that by the time you get to the spin, the other car will have moved. There are many moments in life just like this, which you will have to either respond or react to.
Understand anger and emotion. One of the first keys is to understand anger. When you can deal with your anger, you are less likely to just react. Anger takes over our ability to think clearly. It clouds our judgment and can put us in some tough positions.
Learn some emotional command and start to understand your anger. Why do you get angry? How do you react when you are angry? Do you have control? When you learn more about the emotion, you will be able to handle it in stressful situations. Focus on learning your emotions so that you can be in control when something goes crazy.
Why training is critical. The more you can train through a situation, the better you will be able to handle it. Pilots train over and over for simple things that would scare the you-know-what out of most people. The reason they train so much is that when something goes wrong, they can just go calmly through their checklist and not react. If they react and are not trained, disasters happen. Focus on getting as much training in life as you can. The more training you can get, the more you will be able to respond instead of react in life.
Stress. Stress amplifies everything. One of my greatest privileges was to train with Mike Lee Kanarek. He truly is a warrior and understands stress during combat, which is one of the highest types of stress one can experience. He helped me understand that when something happens, you have to be ready for the application of stress. It is going to amplify everything. When you are ready for this, you can actually use it instead of letting it work against you. The capacity of human beings is amazing. When things happen, slow down, assess the situation and respond.
Reacting is not always the wrong decision. It is not always bad to react. There are situations where there is no time, and you will have to react. This is why your train. You always want to attempt to assess the situation, but if a rock is falling from the sky, you better react and move. Responding is not an excuse to not make a decision. In fact, it is the opposite. Learning how to respond should allow you to make faster decisions and even react better when you need to. You have to understand a situation, and if you start reacting less, your life will get better, because your are now only reacting to things you really need to. You are responding to the rest.
Use breathing techniques. One of my favorite ways to get some control of emotion, stress and reaction is using breathing techniques. If you just focus on your breath, it will slow down your mind and connect you to energy you have inside of you. Any time you are in a rough situation, focus on your breathing. It will help.
Learn and keep doing the best you can. All you can do is keep learning, keep training. The more you know, the better you are going to be able to respond to situations. Learn from others, and keep doing the best you can. Just increasing your awareness of this can save your life. It truly can. You have amazing power inside of you and your mind. Let them work when you need them to.
Let humor help you. I love to laugh at life and see the humor in things. It can really help you get control in a tough situation. Find the humor in situations and smile, then respond and kick butt. Whatever the issue is, humor can actually help you respond instead of react. It can cut through the stress.
Some questions to think about:
Why is it important to understand the difference between responding and reacting?
What emotion gets in your way of responding? What can you do to learn more about that emotion and get some emotional command?
What does stress do in reactive situations? Why is training so critical?
What are you going to do today to help you respond more than react?
Source MorningCoach.com
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