The Four Agreements in the Workplace – Class 2 of don Miguel Ruiz’ Wisdom

May 7th, 2009 Posted in Four Agreements in the Workplace

Don’t Take Anything Personally – the 2nd Agreement from don Miguel Ruiz and The Four Agreements

[to review Class 1 - click here]

We’re working with The Four Agreements to see how we use and lose energy in ourselves and our organizations. In this section, you’ll see where much of your energy goes and how to recapture it to deploy for better results in your life and work.
[**BIG VALUABLE CONCEPT DOWN BELOW!!]
In our individual lives we use a lot of energy in a day to support the stories and ideas of who we think we are. We defend. We may argue. We may criticize and gossip about others who don’t agree with our points of view. For most of us, before we begin a path of Awareness, we aren’t really very conscious about the beliefs and opinions that we are upholding. We simply believe them as if they are true. We have faith in them without question. And many of these ideas and concepts are merely points-of-view; they are not necessarily true.

However, there is a big connection between these beliefs, how we hold them, and the emotional and energetic response they create in our own lives. Many times someone will say something in an off-hand way, and we may have an emotional response. Someone may say something about all the rain we’re having. We might have a reaction like “they are so negative, I don’t like negativity like this around me. I’m not like that person.” We may not say anything, but the mind goes automatically into a reaction. The reaction causes physical responses in our body, like tightness, heat and tension. And then our mind interprets the physical response as an emotion, like anger or fear. This begins a feedback loop between the mind and body, and can use up a lot of energy – just because someone noticed that it’s raining!

This is called “Taking it Personally.” Even if what the person is saying really has nothing to do with us, we take it personally. We all do this a lot. The good news is that once we begin to develop awareness of the comings and goings of this responsive mechanism, we can begin to make different thoughtful choices instead of having automatic reactions.

In the workplace, there is an organizational “mind” made up of all the culture, history, beliefs and “how-we-do-things-around-here” just like in our individual mind. We can use our emotional reactions in the workplace to bring more light to the pieces of the Systems mind that could use a little transformation.

I remember a time when I was not happy with an Office Manager in my company. I felt that she was always complaining and telling others about how she was a victim in many parts of her life. She was always complaining. And I started to be “always complaining” about her to anyone that would listen. [Do you already see where this is going?]
After a few months of this, I saw in one sparkling, clear moment, that there was no difference between her complaining and mine. I was taking her complaints personally, even though they (mostly) had nothing to do with me! Once I saw this and got a big laugh at myself, I began to see that I could have a choice when my complaints would rise up. I could say “oh, that’s just old automatic stuff, let me really listen and see what is here and if there is anything for me to do about it.”
I noticed that some of what she was saying, and where she was taking things personally came from holes, gaps or lack of clarity in our business systems. This is the magical insight in this section. If you notice yourself or someone else really taking things personally at work, chances are there is a System issue behind it.
[**This is the Big Idea]
Imagine shifting your own reactions when you see that someone or something isn’t working as you wish in your business. Instead of the automatic reaction of ” this shouldn’t be happening” or “why me?” or “this customer is a jerk” imagine saying “what is the system issue or need behind this?”
Suspending the automatic “taking it personally” in this way allows to you reclaim 50% or more of your wasted energy in a day. (that is a fact I made up.)
But try this and let me know what you find. Please use the comments feature of this blog and let’s create some dialog here with real-life examples. Or email to me at Kevin@earthandlight.com.
We’ll continue this idea and we still have 3 other agreements to tackle. Thank you for being part of this conversation!
Kevin

For Class 1 of this series- The Four Agreements in the Workplace

For Class 2 1/2 of this series click here -for  The Four Agreements – Systems Thinking and Systems Point-of-View

For Class 3 of this series- click here – for The Four Agreements in the Workplace – Dont Make Assumptions