Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

OK so it’s a law of physics, well it was when Newton discovered it, but it applies to human behaviour just as much as it does the universe.

People who spend a lot of time together slip into habits of reacting to situations or circumstances the same way and, not surprisingly, always get the same results.  For example, your mother is always critical about your hair or your clothes or anything she can find to criticise, you get defensive and the same verbal exchange follows.  You can break the pattern by not reacting in the same way – you could try agreeing with her – say something like “I know, you’re right, I must change it”  you don’t have to agree or actually do anything about it at all, but your mum’s happy and the argument is stopped before it’s started – she cannot react in the same way.

This strategy is not isolated to your mother it will be successful with clients, customer and business as well as in your personal life, if you are not getting the results you want – change something you are doing. There’s a little clue in the gift of self reflection, if you find you are getting into conflict, life is hard or things never seem to work out how you want them to, other people always get their way, then perhaps there is something you can do differently to influence or affect a change elsewhere.

Consciously change how you react to something and you will subconsciously change the reacting behaviour in the other person. They cannot act in the same way if you don’t. It will probably throw them off balance initially and quite often they will try and incite the old reaction from you because that’s what they understand, especially if the are children, but if you stand firm and refuse to react in a negative or confrontational way and choose a different path, they have to as well.

Deliberately changing how you act or react in situations will be far less stressful for you if previously things have been less than positive.