You said what?!

I have heard a lot of chatter on how to express yourself when things go wrong. And having been on both sides of the “correct” option, I thought I might weigh in.

Expressing yourself in a tense situation can be difficult in fact it can be vastly frustrating. All your plans have gone sideways and even your back up plans seem to be failing as you watch, so how are you supposed to express yourself? Calmly as if this happens every day? Emotionless as if you are a robot? How about passionate yet in control of yourself, even if you are not in control of the situation? All of these are recommended to some degree. The ones that are not recommended are yelling at everyone and everything, blaming everyone you have yet to yell at, and becoming violent.

As we all know in sports violent outbreaks can be the response of choice. Anything from throwing a clip board to hitting another player can be the result of a play gone completely wrong. But how about in your line of work, what is considered an extreme but unfortunately common result of a plan gone awry? What would be considered a better response?

Passion is a part of planning and when a plan goes badly part of the response is emotion. As we all know emotion can cause us to react in a manner that in most cases we would not. We have also all heard that we need to respond not react to an event. But again in the moment that is often hard to do.

One very dependable way to help us respond in the manner we believe is best for the situation is to first breathe. Adding oxygen to the brain helps us to think and respond to the problem not react to the emotions coursing through our thoughts. Take three good breaths and then process the actual information. Choose a proper response; send in the kicker, call for back up, plan a vacation, start a new plan …

The point is, things will go wrong even with the best plans and usually the reason we respond badly is because we are caught off guard. We did not anticipate “this” plan going the way it went. Another thing to consider is what truly went wrong? Did the main plan blow up or was it some side issue that caused the problem? Check your emotional condition; are you off a little due to something else going on in your life? Knowing the reality of our situation helps us deal with it in an appropriate way.

Do you know what the appropriate way is? If not that could be a place to start. Most people I speak to have never considered what a proper response to a disaster is, they just know what the wrong one looks like.

Blessings!