I’ve been realizing lately how unaware of ourselves we can be. I was talking to a friend about a particular pet peeve I have when people reach out to me multiple times, and I didn’t respond the first time.

For years I knew this about myself. Really good friends of mine would call me several times in a row, driving me up the wall. It wasn’t that I didn’t like these particular people; it was the act itself that got under my skin. I understand it’s because I have a “planning mentality.” I create a plan about almost everything, and phone calls are definitely a part of those plans. Once someone calls and I’m unavailable, they get placed into the invisible file folder in my mind of “call ‘so and so’ back once available.” But suppose that person calls before I’m able to get back to them. In that case, they get moved into the “clearly I’m unavailable, why are you calling me again, now I’m annoyed” file folder. And depending on how close we are, I’ll bring it to their attention. I once had a friend call me seven times in a row, and I was seriously ready to unfriend her. I didn’t, though. And thankfully, she never did it again.

But I share all of this because it’s been brought to my attention that the same way I get annoyed in this fashion, I can also annoy others. Go figure.

I was talking to a friend about a mutual associate who had demonstrated this extreme reaching-out quality. I was so turned off by her personality that I had to politely remove our connection on social media. In other words, I blocked her.

As I discussed this situation with my friend, I ranted about how I don’t understand the lack of social awareness that people can have. I said if I reach out to someone multiple times and they don’t respond, I get the message. But I realized in this conversation that while that type of communication style applies in my personal life, it doesn’t necessarily uphold in my business life. In fact, I’ll say it plainly, it doesn’t uphold at all in my business life.

When I first got serious about authorship, all of those group text rules flew out the window. You know, the ones where you don’t message a whole group of folks who have nothing in common but you, simply out of consideration that they are forever locked in this thread with strangers? Yep. I did not even care about that rule because I was only concerned about sharing my flyer for my upcoming event. It seemed that the easiest method to do so was the dreaded group text. One of my friends even described it as a form of imprisonment, LOL. And though I’ve lightened up on the group texts, I still continue to message folks on social media or by phone about all of my latest upcoming events.

Even if said folks never respond. I just take it that they’re probably busy but still want to receive these messages for future opportunities to support. Now, I could be completely wrong about this, and some of them, unbeknownst to me, have blocked me, but that’s been my mindset with marketing my brand. You will know unless you say to me blatantly that you don’t want to know.

But I second-guessed this method when I saw a shift in an individual who had previously been very helpful and communicative with me concerning business. She had all of a sudden turned cold and unfriendly. I frantically searched my emails to review our previous correspondence, hoping to find the culprit email. And voila. There it was. Her last message was short and abrupt.

Now, I know we can easily misinterpret a person’s tone in emails and texts, but this written evidence, coupled with her distant in-person response (not on one but two different occasions), made the writing on the wall extremely legible. I could see clearly that she had been annoyed by my follow-up for an upcoming event. This surprised me because I felt that I hadn’t been excessive in my follow-up nor was my communication overly frequent. I had waited a full week-period before sending it. However, everyone’s threshold can vary when it comes to that sort of thing, and for all I know she was having a stressful workweek. Either way, I took this little observation as an opportunity to grow in self-awareness. Just as I was ranting to my friend about the excessiveness of our mutual associate, this woman had probably ranted about me. Sigh. Now that’s an uncomfortable and humble pill to swallow. Still, I comfort myself with the knowledge that I’m not one of these “extra” types of folks who’s just out here hounding people. No. I hound with a purpose.

Still, this occurrence was a great catalyst for looking inward, and thus I’ll try to be more mindful when I am doing the very same thing to others that I hate having done to me.

What about you? What are some of your pet peeves? What are some things that drive you up the wall? Could there be times and spaces where you perform these same tendencies? Would love to hear your thoughts. And if this little article helped you gain some clarity, feel free to comment below!

In other news, did you know that I just dropped the pre-sale for my debut novel When Love Wins? You can check out more here! This time around there is an audiobook in addition to the eBook and paperback versions. Make sure you are subscribed to my email list to catch special offers, discounts, insider information, and more!

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