Do you ever have to interact with someone in your personal or professional life who's just plain annoying?
Here's the current habit loop:
- The annoying person triggers us (the trigger)
- We respond (the routine)
- We get stressed out (the result)
Instead of that habit loop, what about we try this habit loop:
- The annoying person triggers us (the trigger)
- We DON’T respond or we DELAY our response (the routine)
- We reduce our stress! (the result)
Instead of feeling like we must interact with the annoying person every time they trigger us to interact, we can change the way we respond when they try to trigger us!
Perhaps we can be unavailable except for certain periods of time during the day or during the week. Perhaps we can set boundaries on only communicating with them via email. Perhaps we only respond to them once a week or on a different cadence that makes more sense for us.
Try it out sometime, and I’m sure you’ll be impressed with the results!
