A coaching question I often ask is about the circle of control. In case you are not familiar with that terminology, Circle of control includes only what can I control -and that would be … me. I can't control anything else so even if I have influence with something or someone outside of my circle, really it's still about me and controlling me. When somebody is pushing back on something that someone has said about them or if they're taking something very personal that has been said, “Is it true?” If it is your truth, you have to own that truth. What’s your next step?
What outcome are you wanting?
If it isn’t truth, how do you combat that?
We have a lot of things going on in our lives and we don't want to be the bad guys, right? We don't want to have to have these terrible conversations, and we don't want to have to have to push back on somebody if they say that we've done something or they think they perceive something a certain way. One of the things that you have to recognize is that hurting people will hurt people. If somebody is truly hurting, they're going to lash out at anybody and anything that they feel could be a lashing moment. The question is, is someone truly trying to hurt you? Arethey wanting to ruin your reputation? Why? What's going on? What's the process behind that? What experience have they had, or what expectation is it that they're pushing against?
The other part of that is, what are their values?
If somebody is saying something terrible about you, you have to decide if something is pushing against their values. Did I/you do something that created a problem? Again, it's the truth question. If somebody is not happy with you or somebody is saying something about you is it personal? Is it truly within your circle of control?
If this is true, figure out how to fix it. Be accountable. Be mature about it. If it's not true, does it need to be fixed? Seriously… does it have to be corrected? Is it really going to make a difference in anything that's coming in the future? Is somebody having a bad day and they don't really understand what's going on? What's in your circle of control? How would you like to take what's in your circle of control and really understand what that looks like?
That's my thought for the day so hope you enjoyed it.
Hey let me know if you’ve got any feedback. I would love your questions! Talk to you soon!