Question
How do I practice reactive vs responsive?
Quick Answer
Choose one recurring trigger — a type of email, a Slack message pattern, a meeting dynamic that reliably produces a reactive impulse in you. For the next five occurrences, insert a physical pause before responding: close the laptop lid, stand up, or set a literal timer for 90 seconds. After the pause, write down what you noticed during the gap.
Track whether your eventual response differed from your initial impulse.
Common pitfall: Confusing the pause with suppression. Suppression pushes the reaction underground — you respond 'calmly' while resentment builds. A genuine pause doesn't eliminate the reaction; it creates space to observe it. If your pauses consistently produce polite responses that mask growing frustration, you're suppressing, not pausing. The test: after pausing, can you name the emotion accurately? If not, the pause isn't working yet.
This practice connects to Observation Without Judgment — building it as a repeatable habit compounds over time.
Learn more in these lessons
- The pause between stimulus and response
There is a gap between experiencing something and reacting — you can learn to widen it.