How to Respond With Reason When Things Don’t Go Your Way (It’ll Make You Unstoppable)
It’s 7:45 am. I’m standing at the intersection of two streets, exactly as I had been instructed by my tour. The designated pickup time was 7:30 am. I’d been waiting 25 minutes. Across the road I see two rugged up tourists waiting on the curb with the picturesque glacial alps of Queenstown as their backdrop. I wonder if they’re on the same tour. I decide to call the tour company, ring…ring…ring.
Eventually, Martin picks up and to my dismay, his thick Kiwi accent informs me that his colleague made a mistake. I was supposed to be picked up at 7:00 am, and the bus was well on its way to Milford Sound. Understatedly annoyed, I thank him for his time, grab my keys, and start the 8-hour return drive alone.
How many times have things not gone your way in life? From small hiccups to major blow-ups, how often to do you feel the need to lash out, or take out your frustrations towards other people or inanimate objects? How can you learn to respond with reason, instead of overreacting which will make you more unstoppable than 95% of other people?
On things you can’t control
With the tour, it would’ve been easy for me to lash out at Martin with profanities, threatening the company’s reputation, (a little part of me did think about writing a colourful review) or demand compensation for my troubles. Undoubtedly, there was a frustrated shortness in my tone over the phone, however, I remained composed, and polite throughout. How did I do it?
Remain in ‘control’
So I lied. To remain in control, you need to scrap the need for control. The instant you realise that you don’t control most things in life, besides your reasoned choice as Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius said, you’re granted with an enormous freedom and power. As a person who believes my emotions are a light post of intuition, I’ve struggled with this oxymoron in different life situations.
When logic produced better results than emotion, I had to make a tough choice (often more than once). Surprisingly there’s an instant rush of relief and acceptance when I become completely on board with a rationalised decision.
Truth is, letting go takes practice, and the more you can exercise it in low-risk, low-investment situations (such as which brand of yoghurt to buy), you can use this muscle in bigger life decisions and be equipped when things don’t go your way. You don’t always need to be in control. You’re actually more in control when you let go of the need to be in control.
Grab a page from the silver linings playbook
Managing when things go sour is more than just slapping an overly-fake-smile and saying “Everything is awesome!”. To pull a page out of the silver linings playbook, let’s restate the definition of an optimist:
Optimists aren’t indifferent or naive towards negative occurrences in life. They still see things for what they are — bad or good. Instead, optimists choose to respond positively to the hand their dealt.
Ah, the ‘C’ word again (choice). If we view life the way Adam Smith saw market forces with The Invisible Hand, optimists reach ‘free market equilibrium’ by letting life flow and choosing to respond with positivity.
By not dwelling on the negativity, I created space for opportunity to arise on my 4-hour drive by:
- Listening to an array of podcasts, audiobooks, and giving my Spotify account a nice blasting
- Driving at my own pace, avoiding uncomfortable silences or small talk on a bus
- Embarked on an adventure of random lookout stops, including seeing gorgeous Lake Wakatipu:
Beyond choice, seeing the silver lining or pot of gold in every situation allows you to practice gratitude, which has been proven to increase happiness, performance, and overall well-being. Plus, gratitude and positivity are a lot more pleasant and attractive to be around rather than being around a sourpuss.
Become a master of reality
We often chuckle at those internet memes like this one which shows the stark difference between expectations and reality:
Being a master of reality brings you well on your journey of responding to life’s happenings with reason.
Reality = Expectations — What actually happens
If the second half of the equation is beyond our realm of control as mentioned above, what can us control-hungry humans at least influence?
The answer: Expectations
Shifting our expectations towards seeing a silver lining and eventually removing the need at all leaves room for being: a constant state of presence. That’s not to say that we can never look forward to anything in life. As I sit here writing on a Thursday evening in a luscious hilltop house in the small town of Twizel, I’m fully aware that I’ve looked forward to this trip for months. I could be out on a night cruise or meeting new people over exciting drinks in town.
Through choice, a state of being is the acceptance of whatever happens. Being is different to complacency — complacency is avoidance or indifference. Being is a choice. You can say that acceptance cancels out the negativity of what actually happens and leaves a spot for growth, contentment, and meaning.
On other people
One of my favourite quotes is Jacob Braude’s “Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand that it’s virtually impossible to try to change others.”
Alongside things blowing up in our faces, people not responding how we’d like them to is one of the biggest dramas in a lot of people’s lives. There are many variables that it’s no wonder we suffer so many grievances when it comes to people surrounding us.
In Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements he talks about how we’re all actors in everyone else’s life movie. Each one of us is the director of our own movie, and how other people appear in our script is based on our own perception. We can’t change how people view us in their movie and vice versa.
Much to our discomfort, people fall into the “Things we can’t control” bucket, and that means at best we can try to influence them, or simply choose to accept. I try to accept people as they are — the good and the bad. This is a difficult feat by any stretch of the means, however, paraphrasing Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, responding with reason involves understanding three important lessons involving others:
People’s motivation comes from within
Ever been told to walk left, and out of spite, you walk right? Just as it is with you, someone else’s motivation and demand has to come from within. You can try every trick in the book — manipulation, guilt, pressure and you might get the change or action you’re looking for, but it’ll never be long-lasting.
Of course, you can and should voice your feelings and desires, however, someone’s adherence to them has to come from their own internal wish to. If you think about how some people are able to go smoke-free for years while others struggle to quit time and time again? Besides their motivators being different, people do things because they want to, not because they have to. And it’s more than willpower but also environmental.
Vocalise your position. If people don’t respond how you’d like, you to have a choice: react badly, wait for change, or create a new reality. It’s up to you to assess the situation and diagnose which outcome you’re happy with. If you remain unhappy understand that now this has become your choice.
People are buyers
The reason why some marketers or salespeople are guns at their jobs is beyond their ability to ‘close’ or massage people down their funnels. The best salespeople inherently understand that: people want to buy, not be sold to. Echoing the point above around internal motivation, if someone sees the value in something, they want to believe that they came up with that decision themselves.
People want to be winners
Everyone wants to be a winner. In situations where outcomes may be difficult for you to stomach, consider:
“Is there perceived value for the other person in what you’re trying to achieve?”
Stephen Covey also notes this as “Win-win”. If there is a misalignment in values (Win-lose or lose-lose), or a missing element of challenge, people’s behaviour will contradict what you. Human psychology is wired to seek the thrill of a challenge and activate the anticipation of a reward through dopamine. In fact, there is more of a kick from thinking you’ll get a reward than the reward itself.
Again, discuss the situation and evaluate if there is mutual alignment with the value received by both or all parties. Is someone getting the short end of the proverbial stick? If that person is you, are you not giving yourself enough credit?
A little side note on hatred…
Hatred is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die.
Hating, conspiring, or plotting against someone expells an enormous amount of emotional energy. If someone wrongs or goes against you, do you want to give them more power over you by spending your valuable time on them? You’ll become even a stronger person by focusing on forgiveness instead.
On what you believe is ‘right’
It was only in the last year or so that I’ve been recognised for my strong a sense of social justice. In my family, it was all about being fair. Perhaps it was growing up where eight icy-poles were equally distributed amongst my four siblings, or that my sister till this day will cut a dessert down the middle (practically with a set-square) when we share a treat.
In a philosophical sense, our underlying values, standards, and guiding principles define who we are as individuals. But what happens when someone or something steps over that invisible line?
In some instances, our values evolve with our growth so it’s natural that our values adjust. When something goes against what you believe in now, understand that there aren’t many absolutes in life, and that right or wrong is only a matter of perception.
Look for evidence and information that addresses each side of the story. Through this, you’ll be able to move towards the ‘best truth’ and ‘best course of action’ for yourself given the circumstances. This expansion of world-view helps you respond with reason because you understand that who you are isn’t stagnant and that just like your hair, intelligence, or physical ability, your values can change as well.
Values assessment:
- Does holding onto your belief hurt anyone?
- Is what you’re valuing equal and fair?
- Ask questions of the other person(s) and understand their point-of-view
- Question whether your belief is an absolute or an inherited belief?
- Understand if what your standard achieves win-win. If not, how can you adjust the situation so it does?
- If what is happening goes against you, what can you do to adjust, amend, or remove the situation?
And if it weren’t for missing out on that Milford Sound tour, I would’ve underappreciated the coordination of the exceptionally fun Wild Wire waterfall climb that I did yesterday, and also my solo treck out to the Clay Cliffs today:
Originally published at www.reintention.com on September 13, 2018.
