THRIVE - Understanding our reactivity: The important interaction between Action and Awareness.
How many times
have you found yourself doing something that, later on, you regretted doing?
How many times have you found yourself doing something that, later on, you regretted doing? Equally, how many times have you not done something because you over thought the situation and found yourself to have done nothing at all?
I recently came across the following diagram from David Fessell and Matt Goleman about the areas of Emotional Intelligence and it prompted me to think about the important interaction between action and awareness.
As you can see, the ‘spectrum’ between Awareness and Action very much involve ourselves and others.
How we interpret the interactions with others and the circumstances and tasks involved will very much determine where we sit on that line.
This all makes sense. We know people who are ‘all action’ who then have to manage the resultant outcomes of their efforts. We equally know those who seem to think too much and do not seem overly productive.
Understanding
my own reactivity.
Both aspects of our reactivity are important and often it is the case that a healthy dose of awareness of self and others will often bring about positive outcomes when we choose to demonstrate an action. It is not an easy thing to do depending upon the circumstances or context.
I have written this article with the aim of challenging you to consider how you react to tasks, situations and people. What are you thinking and how is that contributing to your actions and resultant outcomes?
Your resultant outcome, whether you did a thing or avoided doing a thing, will be related to your thoughts and feelings, your sense of safety and your relationship with change and growth.
My point is that if you do not feel that you have a choice in how to react ergo you do not feel a sense of self-control in doing or not doing, and this negatively affects you, then I recommend considering the quotation below from Victor Frankl.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”
If you don’t know who Victor Frankl is then I invite you to find out as this will show you how powerful this quote is.
The fact is, you DO have a choice to be able to bring about positive outcomes, but it is not always easy to strike the balance between action and awareness. It is, however, important to be able to develop and grow in this area especially when working with team members and ESPECIALLY if you are leading a team. If we are not connecting with our emotional selves as well as empathically connecting with others, we may find that we put in place the wrong actions that ultimately impacts upon ourselves, our colleagues and our organisation.
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About John Hicks.
Since 2012, after a career in science and technology starting as a bench chemist then moving into sales and marketing and ultimately senior management, I decided to start my own company to help clients to see the truth in their abilities rather than fall for the deceitful thoughts that come with having a low self-esteem.
I realised that individuals at all levels of organisations can experience overwhelm, self-doubt and be de-railed by their automatic reactions to problems rather than have choice and control in bringing about the best outcomes.
If you want to find out more about my work then feel free to look around my website by clicking here.