Creating The Outcome You Want

BY CAROL QUINN

Have you ever noticed that the going can be great one moment and turn bumpy without notice? How you react during these changes says a lot about you. It provides clues about your ability to achieve your goals or produce a successful outcome. You may be someone who handles twists and turns well in many areas of your life but in one or two areas you struggle. You may do well with the challenges in your job but not in your relationships, or visa versus. Where we struggle the most is a noteworthy place to begin looking at our own reactions.

If someone says something that rubs you the wrong way, how you choose to react will impact your results. It’s easy to point one’s finger at the original cause and place blame there without ever acknowledging the influence of our own reaction. So often we take ourselves off the hook and absolve ourselves of responsibility for causing our own experiences. We think someone or something else did it. This article is about understanding the power of our response.

It’s true, people respond differently. There’s no one approach that fits all. However some ways of responding get better results than other ways. More effective responses lead to resolution, whereas ineffective reactions can make matters worse. Think of a pendulum. It’s a clock with a single vertical arm that swings back and forth, back and forth. Our ineffective reactions can be compared to the pendulum in its outer extremes - the far right and the far left. The effective responses would be akin to the middle area. It’s not that effective responses never need to go to extremes however effective ones are typically an appropriate reaction for that time, verses an over or under reaction. Let’s face it, no one takes a class on how to react successfully. Unless you had a good role model as an example, you’re on your own. Maybe you learned how to do it well…or maybe not. Check your results. If they aren’t what you want perhaps you have more to learn.

Whenever we react, consciously or unconsciously, we usually feel we are in-the-right. It was justified. However, when we under-react we don’t react enough given the situation. We should have spoken up but we didn’t. We let it slide but have our reasons. Perhaps we think it was a one-time occurrence or maybe we lacked the courage to confront it. Some offer up non-verbal clues and innuendos in hopes the message will come across. Still others protect themselves like a turtle retreating into their shell. Nothing gets resolved.

The over-reaction on the other hand, protects differently. Feeling overwhelmed or under attack, both guns come out firing. Oftentimes this reaction is an attempt to keep us safe from repeating a bad experience from our past. Innocent people and salvageable relationships can take the hit in over-reactions. They often cause others to run for the hills, or it escalates the problem.

We’ve all been there, on one side or the other. However, when it’s our reaction, it’s imperative that we don’t disconnect it from our results, no matter who started it. Justifying or blaming our action changes nothing. It suggests that our reactions are without consequence and has no negative effect while everyone else’s does. This point of view keeps us ensnared while we wait for others to change. Until we take an honest look at ourselves to identify what we could do better, we repeat again and again. Our reaction holds the key to creating new experiences. If we don’t like this one, the power to change it lies in how we address it.

Extreme reactions typically produce less desirable outcomes. With the help of a mentor, I discovered that my reactions were keeping me from achieving better results. For my experiences to change - I needed to. To achieve something I never have, I had to do something I’ve never done. Change is awkward to say the least. For me, it was neither natural nor common sense but I took my mentor’s advice. I adopted a new reaction, one challenge at a time. It wasn’t easy. My new response felt very wrong while my old way of reacting still felt like the right thing to do. I was arm wrestling myself. I was changing my entrenched perspective 180 degrees and it wasn’t leaving without a fight. I am an intelligent person but I had it wrong for a long time without ever realizing. It was through my willingness to alter myself that I began seeing a positive change in my own experiences and results. As I transformed, the world began responding back differently. The better results I got the more motivated I became. Success has a great way of anchoring new behaviors. You like your new results so you keep the changes. Eventually they become habit. Once in a while I still think twice before I react. And in certain situations I call my mentor. With better results, I wonder why it took me so long to change.

As Dr. Seuss, the famous childrens book author said, “Be who you are and say what you feel ’cause people who mind don’t matter and people who matter don’t mind.” I found that speaking up more effectively  produces an outcome even greater than my expectations. It is through the difficulty that people can either disconnect or grow closer. Your response plays a critical role in creating the outcome you want. Now when my buttons are pushed I control my reaction. This is how I improved my results. Opening to the idea that you may be the one that needs tweaking can be pretty tough to accept. Taking that step, however, will change your life by helping you achieve your goals.

Here’s some pointers:

1. Assess your own reaction in the areas of your life you’d like to get better results in.
2. Open yourself to input - but not just from anyone. Seek counsel from a trusted, accomplished source.
3. Stop defending your past reactions and seek to understand the differences in your advisor’s perspective. Learn how they got their good results.
4. Become aware and catch your desire to react as you always have. Don’t do it!
5. Change. Do something different. Apply what you have learned even if you doubt it will work or it feels awkward - it will at first. Speak up for yourself but do it in a way that will produce the best results.
6. REPEAT!

If you really don’t like the results you’ve been getting it certain areas of your life, just maybe it’s time to look at changing yourself.

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