Ask what a reaction is about before you vent it

When you feel the urge to vent, ask whether you want to keep reacting this way to situations like it.

Warum es wirkt

In an account Braks quotes from one coachee, the coachee came to a session to vent about an irritating dental cleaning, and was asked whether they wanted to stay reactive to situations. The coachee reports being told: “my reaction was as much about me as it was about her.” The source does not say who “her” refers to. The coachee says this changed their belief that they could change their own personality. On this page’s reading, the question moves attention from the event to the person reacting. The source offers one coachee’s report and gives no measure of whether the change lasted.

So gehst du vor

1. The next time you feel the urge to vent about a person or a situation, pause and name the irritation in one sentence.
2. Ask yourself the question the coachee was asked: do I want to keep being reactive to situations like this?
3. Write a one-line answer. Do not try to change the answer yet; just notice what it is.
4. Over the next week, note whether the urge to vent returns in the same kind of situation.

Evidenz

A single retrospective account from a participant in Braks’s (2020) case study, given as feedback on the coaching. It is not a measured outcome for this question, and the source does not report how long the change lasted. (anecdotal)

One coachee’s report, collected by the coach who wrote it up. It shows what one person said mattered to them, not how often the question changes a reaction.

Quellen

• Braks, A. J. (2020). Leadership Coaching Leads to Later Stage Development. Integral Review, 16(1).

Häufiger Fehler

Using the question to blame yourself. Braks’s coachee describes the reaction as partly their own, not as proof of a bad character, and treating it as a verdict misreads that.