You want to be your true authentic self. You fight to be true to you every second of every day, and to those that tell you not to – well, pardon my French, but f**k them. Right?

Okay, sure. I get you. I’ve been there over and over again myself. And yeah, it can feel good to tell someone off like you are some King Kong yourself standing your ground banging your chest. But, after the rise, what is the fall? What do you suffer? Did it really help you?

So when it comes to telling off people you don’t know intimately here are some questions I’d try asking yourself first. When you’ve asked these questions take a step back and re-evaluate them later before deciding to take it to that person.

Questions:

1. What do I achieve from saying this? What do I tangibly get by saying something to them versus going within myself and dealing with what the turmoil is?

2. How well do I know this person and how they might respond? How could the spectrum of possible responses effect me?

3. Who is this person to me? Beyond human nature, is there a reason their response or validation is important to me? Why am I putting so much of my energy on this interchange?

4. Why did this happen? What did it spark in me and why might it have sparked that in me? Might I be reading into the situation?

5. How might I feel about the situation if I focused my energy on something else for just a few hours?

6. Has this happened before? Many times? With other people? Other relative strangers? What happened in those situations? What was the outcome?

If you answer these questions and come to the decision to say something then the next set of questions would be: if I’m going to say it, how am I going to say it? How can I hedge my bets to achieve results versus damage?

If you’ve been in this situation before, let me know. I’d love to hear how you handled it and what your outcome was.

#letstalkaboutit