The Life Skill That Will Help You Minimize Re-Entry Stress
Understand the difference between reacting and responding
As an executive coach, I’ve had plenty of conversations with clients about learning to cope with the unexpected. For obvious reasons, it’s a skill that’s become all the more essential over the past year—and it’s one that’s going to stay essential as we navigate all the awkwardness and ambiguity that comes with re-entering the world.
Here’s what I tell them: The only real constant in life is change. And when confronted with it, most people go down one of two roads. They either respond or react.
Reacting literally means to meet one action with another one. It is immediate and rash. On the other hand, responding, a spin off from the word responsibility, is considerate and deliberate.
Reactions tend to go like this: Something happens. You panic. Then you proceed.
Responses tend to go like this: Something happens. You pause. You process. You plan. Then you proceed.
As I tell my clients, the difference is simple: Reacting is quick. Responding is slower. Responding creates more space between an event and what you do (or don’t do) with it. In that space, you can give your immediate emotions some room to breathe, better understand…
