Anyone who knows me understands that, during the fall and early winter, I watch football. A lot of football…college and pro.

This weekend, for some odd reason, I started thinking about the penalty for illegal motion. For the uninitiated, a referee calls illegal motion when offensive players who are moving before the snap of the football don’t come to a complete stop before the center snaps the ball. If they are still in motion, a flag is thrown, and the offense is penalized five yards. Fans and coaches alike become instantly frustrated when their team makes this mistake. Coaches say things like “we have to be more disciplined. We can’t keep hurting ourselves with mindless penalties.”

I wonder what everyday life would be like if we all were penalized for illegal motion?

Sounds like a strange notion……but think about how many times we act impulsively and move before we should. A colleague writes a seemingly innocuous email that we take wrong, and we fire back without thinking it through. A friend unintentionally does something that hurts us, and we lash out without considering why it might have happened. A loved one forgets to pick up the dry cleaning, and we impulsively bark “I can’t believe you did that to me!” instead of trying to find out if something kept them from completing the errand.

David Burns, an expert in the field of cognitive behavior therapy, has written volumes on automatic negative thoughts that cause us trouble. He says that there are ten cognitive distortions that we encounter, including “all or nothing thinking,” “overgeneralization,” and “magnification.” Without mentally intervening in our automatic thinking and recognizing these distortions, we end up in arguments, distance from each other, and, sometimes, broken relationships. I know I can look back at numerous instances in my life when I wish someone had “thrown a flag” and warned me that I was moving before I should.

Recently I was at a meeting where, in response to something I said, a person responded in an abrupt, cold way. Instead of saying something equally abrupt in return, I stopped for a few seconds and thought to myself, “don’t take this personally. Perhaps she is just having a bad day.” I then said, “thank you for the suggestion. That is helpful.” To my surprise, I felt calm. Even though the person was oblivious to how I might have been offended, I was all right. And I hadn’t fractured the relationship with a colleague by overreacting.

Illegal motion….the next time you are tempted to fire back, imagine a ref getting ready to throw a flag. Avoid the penalty, and avoid the unpleasant consequences.