Think of a world where every interaction with another person was win / win; a world where all communication was clear and understood; a world where your emotions didn’t control your behaviour and a world where you didn’t regret your actions.

I don’t know how interested you are in discovering how you can begin to create a world similar to this right now.

‘‘Win / win is not a technique, it is a total philosophy of human interaction.
It is a frame of mind & heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions.
It is not your way or my way; it’s a better way, a higher way’.
Stephen Covey –‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’

In a previous newsletter (Golden Egg #4) we were discussing our responses to change. I mentioned then that you can begin to choose a response to a particular situation or event. This newsletter will help you explore different ways of understanding how now is the time to begin to choose your reactions and responses.

How have you been creating your world?

There will be times that you have behaved in a way that you later regret & feel bad about.

Exercise

Knowing how you will approach a similar event when it happens again means you know the outcome you would want next time. And you already know what you don’t want, don’t you. So how can you ensure you get what you want. A strategy is needed to ensure your outcome.

It is time to cut the chains and be more flexible in your responses. When you begin to take the right actions, you get the right results in life.

How often have you noticed that if you walk down the street with a smile on your face, people respond positively to you and smile back. The reverse is also true. A frown generates a frown back.

"We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them."
Elbert Hubbard

You can transform the quality of your life and relationships by having a choice as to how you respond.

Cause = Effect

Some one does something we don’t like (cause) and we feel sad / angry (effect).
i.e., being cut up by another driver in traffic.
We get cut up (cause) and we experience a seemingly automatic response (effect) which ultimately leads to another response form the other driver (ultimate effect).
What would your response to this event be?

Your reaction may be similar to this….

Cause Someone cuts you up in traffic
Response You feel anger and honk your horn
Effect The other driver expresses their displeasure at you in a ‘rude manner’!

So how can we change our response and so change the effect? We cannot change the cause as it is external to us and we cannot control how other people drive!

We can try not to react to what happens to us but this is difficult at best. It would mean not feeling emotions. So what can we do?

We can break our responses down in to two parts – automatic emotional responses and the actions we choose to take i.e.; our behaviour.

The place to interrupt our pattern is before we act rather than before we feel. We can do this by simply counting to 10, biting our tongue, taking a deep breath, not speaking nor doing anything.

Victor Frankl described this as ‘the space between cause and effect’.
We can ask ourselves a question at this point of interruption. ‘How would I like to be treated if I was in the same situation?’ or ‘ What would have to be true for me to act in that manner?’

The new pattern would now be:

Cause – Someone cuts you up in traffic
Response – You feel a surge of anger
Choice – Shut down your reactive system. Take a deep breath. Ask yourself ‘When would I act like this?’ Maybe it’s when you are running late or stressed. It’s a one off and you hope other people would forgive you.
Proactive Behaviour – Slow your car down to let them in more easily. Wave and send them a mental good wish.
Effect – they wave back, smile in the rear view mirror. You feel a warm glow. = Win / win

So we always have a choice as to how we respond to situations. We just have to break the chain by creating a negative circuit breaker. Over time this will irradiate your conditioned response.

Experiment with your thoughts and behaviour throughout the week. You will find many opportunities to experiment and interrupt your conditioned response. You will find you are adding choice to your life and with this comes freedom. Freedom from the chains of your behaviour.
The more you become aware of your responses and practice choosing them the easier and easier it will become. So easy that it will become a habit and the more fulfilling you life will become and the more joy you will feel. It is win/win.

‘One word which sums up the basis of all good conduct – loving kindness.
Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself’.
Confucius

Our responses are like a path in the jungle. Over time the more we use the path the more trodden it becomes and the easier to follow. These paths then become our lives.
You will even find that as you change your responses you will change how you represent these events to yourself and this will eventually change your feelings towards them.

We run our brain. We can live by our rules. Whose rules do you choose to live by? Your mind has hidden power that can change and dramatically improve your life. How do you choose to run your brain differently now?

In Summary

‘You are a being of many dimensions and you have the right to use them.
Once awakened the inner giant stretches out and opens doors and opportunities, invoking your full potential. May the rest of your life be the best of your life.’
Jose de Silva

I’m not suggesting this is easy, or even that you will pick it up quickly. In fact you may be surprised at how easy you find this and I would like you to be aware of the areas that you can apply this right now to make your life easier.

Shona McFarlane is an accredited Coach and Master Practitioner of NLP. She is always happy to talk more about this subject or any other element of NLP or Life Coaching. You can contact her at shona@goldeneggtraining.com

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