I’ve been thinking a lot about what habit I want to work on this month. It’s tricky. I have my first professional conference that I am attending since the pandemic in mid September. Habits are so rooted to our environment, that when the environment shifts as it does when we’re not home, it’s hard to build the habit.

But there is something I’d like to work on. Something that happens to me weekly. I have a virtual meeting once a week and one of the regular participants is kind of annoying. They often dominate the conversation and talk when other people are trying to chime in. They also ask a lot of questions that would be answered if they could just pause and wait a minute. Talking to this person directly is a nonstarter. It would hurt their feelings and I don’t want to do that. Because it’s just a weekly meeting, I want to work on my response to this person. I want to be less annoyed by them. Habits researchers say that how we respond to people (the trigger) is also habitual… a response to our past experiences with this person. Which is why a lot of couples end up fighting over the same things over and over again. Triggers and responses with habitual behaviors that become a cycle that is hard to break.

So here’s my plan:

Before I launch these weekly meetings I will spend two minutes deep breathing remembering that this person has many wonderful qualities and is acting out of a very bad habit of dominating conversations. I will also remember that I have many bad habits too and my bad habits can be annoying to other people as well. None of us are perfect and I am a work in progress.

When this person says something that frustrates me, I will take a deep breath and pause for 10 seconds and see if my better self can’t craft a better response.

That’s my September goal.