This week I have a personal story to tell you – about road rage and how a sudden flash of insight helped me overcome my addiction to this self-destructive behavior many years ago. Fasten your seat belt, and come along for the ride…
The scene: I was driving on a nearby freeway when a car came roaring up behind me. I instantly went into fight or flight mode. I hit the brakes to warn him off – then, when he stayed dangerously close, I tensed up, ready to brake harder. But I was interrupted. My passenger pulled at my sleeve and said, quietly, “You’re going to get us killed.”
It was a life-changing ‘aha’ moment. It suddenly hit me that my mindless actions could literally have life or death consequences. I said, simply, “You’re right,” then moved over and let him pass.
That incident led to profound soul-searching and, ultimately, to the following 3-step road rage rehab plan – a plan that has stood the test of time for me and my clients, and may be of some use to you:
1.My first step was to develop a statement of purpose to guide my actions as a citizen of the road. For several years I had developed statements of purpose as a reference and guide for each of the important roles I play, in both my work and my personal life. But I hadn’t done so with my role as a driver. (Stay tuned, I’ll talk more about purpose in another post). Here is the statement I settled on…
“My purpose as a citizen of the road is to do everything in my power to ensure that my passengers and I get to our destination safely – and do what I can to ensure others travel safely as well.”
If you’re thinking this is just common sense, you’re right, of course. But, as I say so often – when it comes to managing our reactions and building better habits, common sense is rarely common practice. I needed to write down and repeat my statement, again and again. And I came up with a little device that really helped. I repeated the phrase, ‘Citizen of the road,’ – or simply the word ‘Citizen’ – every time I touched the car door handle. I did this for months, until my intention and my behavior were in sync.
2. The next step was to identify what was causing my angry reaction and deal with it. I had to find a way to defuse or avoid the anger that got me into trouble – not to stuff it because that’s unhealthy – but to pre-empt it…to take anger out of the equation entirely.
I knew that fear played a role, but why did I respond to fear with anger and combat-readiness? Why didn’t I move to safety in another lane as a first response? Did I think that would look cowardly? Was it all about demonstrating my fearlessness to this complete stranger? (Really?) After considerable thought it occurred to me that the trigger for my anger was simply making a knee-jerk negative assumption about the other driver – assuming he was a bad guy, a bully, out to harass me and others. Someone who needed to be taught a lesson.
3. I reversed my negative assumption. That led me to wonder what would happen if I reversed my negative assumption. What if I tricked myself into assuming that he was actually a good guy – a Dad whose son has been hurt at school, and is racing to the hospital, hoping to arrive before the ambulance? I would never know the truth either way, of course, but if I chose to make a positive assumption I’d be off the anger hook. Instead of being out of control – like a puppet with no one working the strings – I could remain fully functional. And if I’m wrong – because he’s driving erratically, for example – perhaps impaired? – then I could call 9-1-1.
I also had to manage my unrealistic expectations around situations and thoughts that provoked lower intensity raging – frustration, annoyance, disgust, disappointment – and more. These thoughts and events almost always occurred before the big guns exploded. I listed several situations that triggered lower level angry reactions and countered each one. For example:
- Traffic wall to wall and snarled? “Is this anything new? What did I expect?”
- Construction zone? Did I take time to look up driving conditions before hitting the road this morning?”
- Unfair flag person ignoring me, while others get through? “Really? She doesn’t know me from Adam.”
- Bad behavior by other drivers in general? “Again, what did I expect?”
- Worry about being late. “I talk about leaving home earlier, from now on I intend to find ways to actually do it. I could start by getting the kids to choose their clothes the night before; that alone could reduce the time, and the last minute panic that we go through now.”
So. There you have it: Road Rage Rehab: As simple as 1-2-3. Right? Well, hardly. It took me three solid months to re-program my behavior – and feedback from clients told me their experiences were similar. Remembering our intention was vitally important – saying the word ‘Citizen’ or the phrase, ‘Citizen of the road’ – out loud – proved to be the key to success for many of us.
This Week’s call to action
power to you) simply choose another role – leader at work? (Sadly, many of the leaders I worked with raged at work as well as in traffic). Parent, partner or teacher? Coach, volunteer, friend? Or? The idea is to crystallize your intention – to identify what you most want to achieve, contribute or gain – in the way you conduct yourself in roles that matter most to you. This helps ensure that you’re doing things intentionally – ‘on purpose’ instead of ‘by accident’ – in the way you conduct yourself. For example, a CEO I worked with put her purpose as a parent this way…
“My purpose as a parent (of a twelve year old) is to do all I can to support my daughter in learning how to think critically and independently – and do all I can to maintain our close relationship as we go through the teen years together.”
She told me later that having this simple statement of purpose gives her a sense of mission. It reminds her to think carefully before approaching when there is a potential problem – and to consult and negotiate, instead of just dictating, when decisions have to be made and things have to be done. (Imagine going through life as a parent ‘without’ a crystallized sense of purpose. You’re right. Sadly, that’s reality for the vast majority of parents).
Another benefit of developing a statement of purpose to guide our driving behavior is that the practices involved are readily transferrable. Again, I noticed early on that the manager who rages on the road also tends to rage at work – with consequences that can be just as serious.
No matter what role we work on with this exercise, the goal is the same…to prevent us peaceable ordinary citizens from turning into Mad Max Road Warriors when we allow anger to take the wheel.
See you next week.
Neil
Hello and welcome. My name is Neil Godin and I’m your host here at This Week – a free coaching service that brings you leadership and communication tips, tricks and tutorials every Monday – along with a call to action: to put each week’s insight, idea or skill into practice. This Week took shape as I began to wrap up my 45-year career as a business development and leadership trainer, speaker and writer. I needed a ‘culmination project’ – a way to share many of the unique insights and skills developed with my clients over the years – particularly in the trial-by-fire of my business turnaround work with companies facing bankruptcy – where people had to learn to work together as never before. I invite you to subscribe and receive an email notice when each new article lands. Subscription is free of charge. NG
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