Monday, August 03, 2009

Pragmatism

Think before you act!

This old cliché, is simply explained by Peter Bregman in this post which might help you to put it into practice more often.

In summary:

pb_chain1.jpg

...is the natural way to react. We react reflexively - before thinking (back in a day when humans were facing a 'hungry tiger' on a daily basis, there was no (much) time left for deliberation) - to the event and face the consequences - be it good or bad - of this automatic reaction as an outcome.

The better - and the more appropriate for today's day and age - approach, instead of reacting directly to the past event, is to take a moment to think about the future outcome that we desire following the event that just took place and then react accordingly:

pb_chain2.jpg

This small change in the activity chain yields big results. I first learned it a while back as the SOCS principle (easy to remember by thinking of socks) when reading Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman:

Situation - what is it that you are facing
Option - which reaction options are available to you in this situation
Consequences - what are the consequences of the each reaction
Solution - chose the option that has consequences most aligned with the desired outcome

You can’t escape the consequences of your actions.” - Steve Pavlina

gdLuck...!

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