I am privileged to work with some really fantastic people, and I genuinely do learn something new every day. Sometimes my job is complicated and I wonder if maybe I could do something “easier”, and then something happens to remind me why I value my workplace and my colleagues so much.

Earlier this week a colleague taught me something I’d never heard before. It’s a set of questions to ask yourself before you say something to someone else and it goes like this. Before you speak, ask yourself:

1. is it true?
2. is it necessary?
3. is it kind?

Three simple rules. If the answer isn’t yes to all three, then don’t say it.

Will I live by these rules? Almost certainly not. That’s a high mental load to tax yourself with every time a comment comes to mind. I’ll almost certainly fail. But, it will help me to be a kinder, better person sometimes now that I know that the method exists.

Plus, it’s an amazing way to assess your own reaction. Today, a person said something to me and I found myself feeling hurt and angry. And I knew it was an overreaction to a small comment which shouldn’t have bothered me. It took me a second, but when I thought about it I realised what had gotten to me – it was the fact that to me, the comment felt unnecessary.

Once I’d realised that, I realised that there are two possible options. Either, that person thought their comment was necessary, so I need to work on showing more outwardly that it isn’t, and that I know what I’m doing. Or, that person didn’t think about the potential impact of their comment on me, and that’s cool too because I get that it’s a big mental load, and that people don’t always interrogate what they say before they say it, and it wasn’t said in malice.

And now I feel better, and I’ve learned something too. And it’s only Wednesday.