Consequences vs Punishments

The other day, I had the privilege of visiting my home island, Lesvos, for a short vacation with my girls. One day, we went to the beach with one of my nieces, and there, she came across her closest friend, Zoi. What a coincidence. The kids were so happy!!

At some point, all the girls got ice cream except Zoi. Zoi misbehaved earlier, and her mother wanted to teach her a lesson. She never said, "You are grounded," but she told her, "This is a consequence of your bad behavior." WOW!!

How powerful words can be!! This is a consequence. It is not a punishment. You are responsible for this development. It was not my choice. It was yours.

Imagine how vital lessons we can learn from all our bad behaviors, mistakes, inefficiencies, lousy performances, etc., if we remember that consequences—and not punishment—will follow.

Do you see the difference? The first one is inevitable, while the latter is debatable. Consequences are specific; we know exactly why we ended here, while punishments are vague. There is a huge difference in mindset between those two.

Every time adults get punished, this reminds them of their childhood. The inner child awakes, so they want to complain in order to escape a difficult situation. Of course, if they manage to escape this, then they feel pretty successful they did so.

On the other hand, consequences are for responsible human beings who understand how things work and can grasp that every action triggers a result. Actions and results are tightly coupled. No one can escape the results of an unfortunate action. The same goes for fortunate actions, too. It is a fundamental principle as if we try to analyze 1+1=2, so there is no room for misinterpretation or hard feelings.

What a great lesson, a reminder that every day is a new learning opportunity for all of us, whether in the office or the beach. Cheers!!