It’s all about PROPORTION: Negotiating your way through life
Decisions are like atoms, the reactions they give back determine your fate.
Everyday, we are hit with key decisions which will affect the rest of our day, sometimes they affect the rest of our lives but usually it’s things that we loose perspective on that cause to us make a disproportionate response that gets us in the most trouble.
Are you an Active, Passive or Reactive person?
We only have the choice towards any one decision that we make – using any one can lead towards your goals OR push them further back.
Active: We can actively confront the issue, if you are unhappy with your current pay raise, this reaction would be to go visit your boss and ask him for a hike before he comes to you with a proposal.
Passive: This is not hiding from an issue, just letting it simmer until you either have enough information to make a key decision OR you are currently indifferent with the situation… if you where unhappy with your pay , a typical response would be to do nothing until the next scheduled pay raise.
Reactive: I believe this is the most powerful but also the most dangerous approach towards a situation. Instead of using your logic, you are thrusting your emotional response to make the decision for you. Again, if your boss told you that your pay increase for the year is only 2%, an immediate reaction saying “but I want 5%” may either leads towards an increase somewhere in the middle or being shown the door.
I believe a balanced individual knows when to pick fights and when to stand back… you cannot always be in one of these modes, otherwise you would be in an insane asylum (reactive), homeless (passive) or jail (active) in extreme circumstances of course 
Choosing your weapon is as important as choosing it’s yield
There is a scale of 1-10 with a 10 being an emotional wreck and 1 being calm and logical. Your boss has said he can only afford a 2% raise, you can be reactive with a level head and maybe get that to increase or gain more knowledge… OR using the same reactive weapon at a level of 10, throw his desk to the ground and storm out. You are using the exact same weapon but with a different yield.
Sometimes it’s very difficult to maintain control your emotional to logical ratio. Some decisions like eating yogurt for breakfast instead of a bowl of cereal as so non-consequential that the decision is made without a second thought but other decisions like getting a divorce are so incredibly difficult that you are always one step away from loosing it at any one time.
Dealing with falloff
You cannot look at only one side, sure your cereal can’t say “please eat me instead of yogurt” but most of our decisions in life have another person involved. For instance, your boss who gave you a bad pay raise, you reacted lets say actively at a yield of 5… you got kids to feed and you need the money to make ends meet. You love your job, the environment and the challenges it gives to you but regardless, you are living paycheck to paycheck with no end in sight. Your mix of logic and emotion might be enough to persuade the boss to understand your situation and maybe instead of more pay, they may willing to pay your gas to travel to and from work. There is ALWAYS room for negotiation… but you must be careful to keep the lines of communication open while still controlling where they are leading to. How you deal with the other person after they have presented a counter-offer is as important as your original choice of weapons and yield. Remember, falloff is lethal only in high doses – you can manage the rest.
Keep things in PROPORTION
When ever your in a decision mode, please do not loose perspective as to why you are doing something and how important it really is in your life. Is it worth going through all the emotional trauma of getting 1% increase in pay above what you where originally given to risk your career? Is it worth the physical and emotional turmoil you may be put under should it go the other way and you find yourself on the chopping block? Is your job really so important to you that you are willing to risk it for a far better opportunity? What is more important to you… your family or your job? These and many more are questions you need to ask yourself before you put your first step forward, otherwise you are an emperor with no cloths and you will be called out. Remember, keep things in proportion.
The Bottom Line
Choose your weapons and available yields BEFORE you take the first step… otherwise you may not get the results you are after.
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