Cause and Effect in Professional Boundaries
There are plenty of occasions where problems arise or drama occurs within a team or between individuals such as the stakeholders that you work with.
During our training sessions or 1:1 coaching, we spend time looking at cause and effect as a way to look at your response and subsequent reaction to something that happens.
Lengthening the time between the stimulus and your response is vital if you want to avoid making rash or impulsive decisions, or acting in a way that might not be the best for you, your job or for others.
I mentioned about the role of drama in professional relationships in a previous blog, those in drama are also often “at effect” whereas if you are able to step back from the drama of a situation you are much more “at cause”
What happens when we are at effect?
When you are “at effect”, you’ll often be focussing on the things you cannot change over and over.
You put all your time and energy into negative thoughts about the situation, blaming others for the situation that you feel are holding you back, maybe you see limited choices and options to help others, and can often feel powerless or are dependent on others to feel happy in your professional and personal life.
This is a very past focussed way or thinking, ruminating over previous decisions and what happened before and is not healthy when it comes to solving or resolving issues moving forward.
What happens when you are at cause?
When you are feeling “at cause”, you are much more in control of the situations you are faced with.
You feel comfortable, able to use past experiences to draw ideas and solutions to help you, you’re able to step back and keep emotion out of the solutions you can come up with and you are also incredibly solution focussed.
You also have a way to control how things impact how you feel and focus on the things you can change and can affect, next.
This is a very future focussed position to be in, accepting what’s happened and the feedback (whether from self or from others) and looking at what you want to have happen, next.
What can you do to move from effect to cause?
When you are faced with a situation that is difficult or tricky, pause.
Take a few good, deep breathes, change space or step back and think, ok how can I approach this situation right now from an empowered perspective? What might my manager (or someone whose advice I would really respect and take on board) do right now?
What boundaries do I need to hold for my own energetic protection, for the organisation I’m working for and for the other person?
When we are feeling under pressure or ‘under attack’ we can make rash decisions, so use the power of your body via the breathe, pausing and stepping back to help you ensure you are not making decisions from a flight or fight response.
Look at the options, write them down if you have the time, look at the options from different perspectives and then, based on your professional relationship with the other parties, make the best response you can with what you know right now.
We discuss these scenarios on the professional boundaries training courses from online through to group through to 1:1 so if I can support you, let me know.