QTIP
Conscious leaders know how to Quit Taking It Personally
These days it seems like everyone has a short fuse. The stress of international lockdowns, pandemic anxiety, political turmoil, and a host of other complications have everyone on edge. Even individuals who are normally upbeat and composed are experiencing catabolic energy because they can feel the collective anger and anxiety. It feels like we’re all more sensitive to having our buttons pushed right now.
Button pushing is what happens when a catabolic reaction is triggered causing strong emotions to arise. For example, someone tells you who they voted for, which you don’t agree with, and you suddenly feel intense anger or resentment. Your button gets pushed and you want to react emotionally. Maybe you feel like their actions are a personal assault on your beliefs. When we start taking things personally, it leads to judgment, anger, and all sorts of negative responses that impact us and those around us.
How can we consciously address this button pushing? Here are some steps recommended by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching:
Stop, breathe. Ask, “What might be my button?” “How do I react emotionally here?” “What is really going on here?” “How can I handle this differently in the future?”
QTIP: Quit Taking it Personally
When this button is pushed, what do you take it to mean about you? What’s the interpretation you’re making that causes you to react?
What’s another possible interpretation?
On one hand, you have (first interpretation), on the other hand, you have (second interpretation). Which is more empowering for you?
Given the different ways of seeing the situation, how will you choose to view it and respond now or next time?
When a button gets pushed, we immediately lose our ability to think logically or consciously about the situation. But when we quit taking things personally and raise our consciousness to look from a higher perspective, it’s amazing how we can shift out of an angry energy into a curious, collaborative energy.
Another important way to QTIP is to increase your empathy. Most of us have personal challenges that no one else knows about. We judge others and try to make them wrong when we have no idea what they could be facing that particular day. Maybe their partner said they’re leaving. Maybe their dog died. Maybe their doctor gave them some bad news about their health.
I recall how one time I was going through an emotionally difficult time in my life and decided to take my dog to Zilker Park here in Austin so she could get some exercise and I could get some fresh air. I was so distracted by my personal turmoil, that I failed to notice I had parked in such a way that I essentially blocked another car in their spot.
When I returned to my car an hour later, I found a note on my windshield that expressed the other car owner’s displeasure. It was a cruel note that berated my intelligence. I started crying because I was so stunned by their hateful, demeaning words when I was already at such a low point in my life.
I realized in that moment that we have no idea what others are going through and we need to have more empathy. Sometimes it’s not that people are intentionally stupid or mean; they’re just so distracted by intense personal issues that they don’t have the capacity at that moment to be aware of what’s going on around them.
What if our default response to others was to have empathy and not take their behavior personally? What if we invested in raising our consciousness so that when a button gets pushed, we respond in a highly conscious way?
These days it feels like news stories and social media posts are designed to push our buttons. But we can consciously rise above all this button pushing by deciding to quit taking things personally and instead look at the human in front of us and genuinely care for them.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapist Joel Minden shares some other ways to stop taking things personally.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
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The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
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