Tips: How to avoid eating your words!

I should have titled this, “Avoid Indigestion”, but I didn’t want this lost with all the medical blogs out there.

We’ve all been there, in that moment of excitement where the energy and adrenaline kicks in, and our mouth begins spewing things out without thinking. We don’t say anything false, but we use words that can be taken in a myriad of different ways, none of course the way you intended.

Just recently, I was in the heat of the moment, and out came the words. I failed to take the appropriate time to think about my response and just reacted to the situation. I knew what I meant, I didn’t mean any harm, nor was I trying to place blame on the other party. However, when I think about what was said and how better it could have been said, I quickly understood why the person reacted the way they did.

Now, this ‘should’ go hand in hand, both parties in the negotiation should be taking time to respond to any given situation. However, we as professionals need to always be in control of this, and never let emotions or reactions rule what we say. If the other party is reacting unprofessional, it is our responsibility to remain focused and on task. Think about what they said and before opening up the funnel we call a mouth, make sure what comes out is clear and understood the way you intended.

For example, I’ll use a situation with my lovely bride in a recent discussion we had during the middle of a remodeling event.

I was starting to hang up the lighting fixture and noticed that there were parts missing from the package she had purchased. Instead of saying; “there are parts missing, I can’t use these”, I said “looks like I can’t use the globes that you bought”. I didn’t think much of it, but off she went and, well, just remember “happy wife, happy life”. I lost little battle that because of poor communication, but it was out there and I couldn’t just eat my words.

We have a better chance of “responding” instead of reacting to any stimulus, by simply taking the time to think about what occurred or what was said. The longer the time we take, the better the response is and more clearly it will be.