{"id":652,"date":"2011-05-31T12:01:35","date_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?p=652"},"modified":"2011-04-18T15:14:50","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T19:14:50","slug":"think-before-you-react-negatively","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2011\/05\/think-before-you-react-negatively.html","title":{"rendered":"Think Before You React Negatively"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently went to my usual diner for lunch with my laptop. Normally the service is excellent but this time my waitress was new and overwhelmed since all her tables had just arrived at once. She ran around trying to take orders and was blatantly frazzled. When I asked for things I always get she wasn\u2019t sure what I meant. I got annoyed and came close to asking one of the other waiters to help her. Or complain to the manager. I waited much longer than usual for my food. But I caught myself and remembered that kindness is better!!<\/p>\n<p><strong>When someone isn\u2019t giving you the best service but is trying their best, compassion is much better<\/strong> than annoyance, which can make their job worse from the stress..<\/p>\n<p>I put myself into a much better mood by remembering that! The waitress ran around like crazy trying her best to get everyone\u2019s order. She didn\u2019t need more grief from me. I actually felt good being patient. And when she brought my food, I told her how bad I felt for her having to rush around non-stop like that when she\u2019s not used to it. I got a big smile. She said she\u2019d been working non-stop for 6 hours straight, no time for the bathroom or to eat. I could see her relax by sharing that with me.<\/p>\n<p>Every time she walked by my table I gave her a reassuring smile and saw gratitude in her eyes. I think it also helped her that she could connect with someone who understood. It made me realize how easy it is to react based on what we want and not consider that the other person is going through. <strong>Getting annoyed or frustrated doesn\u2019t get you better service but it does put you into a negative mood<\/strong>. That never feels good so why do it?<\/p>\n<p>Being kind to someone will put you into a good mood when you see their gratitude.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Think before you go to a dark place when someone annoys you<\/strong>. Stay in the light of kindness. Even if the person doesn\u2019t appreciate it, you can appreciate that you\u2019re a kind person. Whatever the person does or doesn\u2019t do has nothing to do with you. Really! A true nice person isn\u2019t nice because of what they get from others. They\u2019re nice because it\u2019s their nature. I don\u2019t mean you should ignore blatantly bad service or a nasty attitude. But if the person is just super busy and doing his or her best, cut some slack. You\u2019ll be giving them a blessing.<\/p>\n<p>Take the <a href=\"http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com\/the-pledge\"><strong>self-love challenge<\/strong><\/a> and get my book, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com\/the-book\">How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways<\/a><\/strong> for free at <a href=\"http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com\/\">http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com<\/a>. And you can post your loving acts <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com\/post-self-love-actions\">HERE<\/a><\/strong> to reinforce your intention to love yourself. Read my 31 Days of Self-Love Posts <strong><a href=\"..\/2011\/02\/31-days-of-self-love-posts.html\">HERE<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Please leave comments under my posts so we can stay connected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently went to my usual diner for lunch with my laptop. Normally the service is excellent but this time my waitress was new and overwhelmed since all her tables had just arrived at once. She ran around trying to take orders and was blatantly frazzled. When I asked for things I always get she&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-self-empowerment-confidence"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Think Before You React Negatively - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2011\/05\/think-before-you-react-negatively.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Think Before You React Negatively - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I recently went to my usual diner for lunch with my laptop. Normally the service is excellent but this time my waitress was new and overwhelmed since all her tables had just arrived at once. She ran around trying to take orders and was blatantly frazzled. When I asked for things I always get she&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2011\/05\/think-before-you-react-negatively.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-31T16:01:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-04-18T19:14:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daylle Deanna Schwartz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Think Before You React Negatively - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2011\/05\/think-before-you-react-negatively.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Think Before You React Negatively - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","og_description":"I recently went to my usual diner for lunch with my laptop. Normally the service is excellent but this time my waitress was new and overwhelmed since all her tables had just arrived at once. She ran around trying to take orders and was blatantly frazzled. 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Let Me Count the Ways, a She's appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, including Oprah, Howard Stern, and Good Morning America and has been quoted in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Marie Claire, and Men\u00b9s Health. After being a consummate People Pleaser who felt unworthy of getting her own needs met for many years, Daylle found a path of self-love that enabled her to build her self-esteem and reinvent herself into a dual career. She learned to get taken seriously without being overtly assertive when she became one of the first women to start an independent record label (on a dare!) and learned to play ball nicely and successfully in an industry dominated by men. To help independent musicians empower themselves, Daylle writes music business books for Billboard\/Random House, including the very popular Start &amp; Run Your Own Record Labe and I Don't Need a Record Deal! Daylle's books have been translated into over 10 languages and are popular around the world. She speaks for colleges, organizations and corporations. Through her company, Project Self-Empowerment, Daylle creates programs and materials to help people empower themselves. One goal is to raise the money to self-publish her book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways and give it away for free in colleges and through organizations, to give thanks for all her blessings. Daylle uses her writing and speaking to help others find the kind of contentment and empowerment that she has.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/author\/dschwartz"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1522,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions\/1522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}