It is a quote that can be understood to try and move people towards changing their reaction to events and take control of their lives. And that our reaction to events is 90% of what makes our future better.
Don you agree? The more we take control of our reactions to events the more we will take control of our lives. And by taking control of our reactions to these events we will be in control of our future. To make it better. Or less painful.
Let's examine this. There is Stuff that happens and then there is a Reaction. Inevitably the 2 together lead to a Result.
Someone cuts you off in traffic on your daily commute (Stuff). You beep the horn at them and get upset (Reaction). They flip the finger at you and drive on leaving you getting angry. You offload at work to a colleague and respond curtly to an email with a 'stupid' question. (Result).
According to the saying we could change our reaction. Let's see.
Someone cuts you off in traffic on your daily commute (Stuff). You feel upset they nearly caused an accident but decide to let go and continue to work. (Reaction). You arrive at work and have a coffee discussing the game with your colleague and respond to the email with the 'stupid' question politely yet with a slight undertone of sarcasm. (Result).
Sounds better already doesn't it? So it works then.
Someone cuts you off in traffic on your daily commute (Stuff). You ask yourself how sitting in this traffic every day is helping you with the intentions you set and decisions you made about your next work related step. (Reaction). When you get to work you greet all your colleagues, respond kindly to the email and during lunch start looking up how you can do what you want to do workwise from a location that doesn't require you to sit in traffic. (Result).
The last way is a proactive approach to life. An approach that flips the equation around. Set intentions and make decisions on what you want from life and adapt your reactions to those and then setting your own results as the 'controlled' field.
In other words try and set the Results and adapt the Reactions to lead towards the Result. The Stuff will continue to happen at a rate of knots but will somehow be less important than it was to both the Result and the Reaction.
This is another insight on what gets me to run more than I did before. Stuff (Weather, Workload, Parties, Matches, Urgent Emails, Phone calls) still happens. Decisions and Intentions (12 marathons in 12 months in 2015) were set. This brought along daily implementation of 5 to 6 runs a week and increasing my weekly mileage from 35 at the start of the year to about 45 now. 11 months later I am at 15 Marathons instead of 12. And I have 2 more booked. (Result).
This requires a small paradigm shift in thinking yet it works for me and it has worked for my clients in all areas of their lives. What do you think?
Do you prefer to get Results proactively or reactively? The choice is yours.
Miles with Smiles: 42.56 miles in training this week after a Marathon the weekend before!! 1,849 miles so far this year and on course for reaching the 2,015 miles in 2015!!
Have a beautiful day!
Patte xxx
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