23 Oct Check Yourself First
Life can be stressful, especially if you feel like you are constantly reacting to everything that happens. That’s why when it comes to how you handle your business and your personal relationships, knowing the difference between reacting and responding is critical.
The key to better manage your emotions and your responses is in knowing the difference between reacting and responding.
According to Merriam Webster, react means “to exert a reciprocal or counteracting force or influence”. It can also be defined as, “to change in response to a stimulus, or to act in opposition to a force or influence.” For example, if you were to push against a spring, the spring would react by pushing back against you. We also know this as Newton’s Third Law of Physics. Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. So, if you are constantly reacting to things in your business or in your personal life, you could very well be driving things in the wrong direction.
Instead, the word respond means “to say or write something as an answer to a question or a request, or to have a good or desired reaction to something”. In contrast, a reaction is a negative action, when you respond, you have the control to make it a more positive or optimistic experience.
When you respond, you take a moment to contemplate what you want to say, how to say it, and what outcome you want. However, when you react, it is usually done in the heat of the moment, with little time spent reflecting on the outcome of what may happen.
This week I challenge you to ask yourself: Am I reacting to situations or am I responding to them?
If you want to perform at your highest level, you need to master how you respond and handle situations and people in your life and business.
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