Strategy for Double Trigger

When you identify one of your triggers, I think the hardest thing to do is to acknowledge that you’re going to have to change something in yourself instead of something external. I have two triggers that have been hit simultaneously several times lately, and my first strategy is always to explain it to people so they’ll stop doing it. It took nearly two days for me to accept that this might be something I have to deal with instead of blaming others and trying to control their behavior.

Specifically, these triggers are:

1)      I lose my focus when someone comes and stands behind me staring over my shoulder at my computer when I’m working. I completely lose the bubble, and then I’m just contemplating what they are looking at and thinking, and what unwanted comments or advice they are going to provide. Completely distracting.

2)      I hate it when people start making assumptions about what I’m doing and volunteer advice that I didn’t ask for when I have everything under control. Or, when I get satisfactory advice, but then they throw in some random statement at the end that I should ignore but instead I try to process it in case it applies to what I am doing. Then I realize it has nothing to do with anything, and I decide to summarize that for them, which actually gets them involved again because instead of acknowledging that it doesn’t affect what I’M doing they decide to explain in inordinate detail everything THEY are doing and suddenly they want ME to DO it as well, right then and there. And they try to push me to do it and I just want to get back to what I was doing, and I try to be like okay I got it, sure, yeah, and then when they won’t stop I get frustrated and I’m like OKAY, I’ve GOT it, don’t WORRY about it. And then they don’t “appreciate” my attitude when they are just “trying to help”. Um, no. You are wasting my time and yours.

So put the two together and you have a perfect storm.

After wallowing in my anger for a while, I finally came to a place where I could see it more clearly. Everything happens FOR you, not TO you, as Mastin Kipp says. If I am going to succeed, I’m going to need to learn how to work under pressure and with people staring over my shoulder. These are merely opportunities for me to practice that skill. These are moments where I can see it as a fun test for how well I can keep my focus. Maybe I’ll even giggle next time it happens, because I will have been waiting for it, instead of taking a frustrated sigh and waiting for the inevitable interruption that follows.

As for the second one, this one will be trickier. There is usually a lot of interaction that progresses into that state. Looking back, all I really have to do is ask that they excuse me to finish what I’m doing before I embark on the task they want me to perform, assuming it is in fact somewhat helpful to what I am doing. I just need to not take it as… what do I take it as? I take it as them derailing me, making me lose my concentration and making me doubt myself, only to realize moments later that I was in fact on the right track. So I just need to remind myself that I do have enough time to hear them out to a certain extent, I can gain knowledge on what they are doing instead of rejecting the knowledge because it does not pertain to the task at hand, and if they try to pressure me then I will ask that they let me finish what I’m doing and I’ll grab them when I have time for it, if they think it is that important.

OKAY. So I have a strategy for next time.

This happens often, so I’m sure I’ll be able to utilize this soon. I will TRY to not let the triggers unleash all of my emotions. I will try to not judge and feel attacked. I will try.