Have you ever felt that you were getting too angry, upset, or sensitive at work and reacting badly? Not knowing why your stress level is soaring while your work and your connections are suffering the consequences?
Well, fret no more! The answer is here – and it is in learning how to use emotional intelligence to get you back on track. It is about being aware of your emotions and being able to manage them well. The following steps will help you make a great start:
- Be self-aware: this means recognizing and understanding your emotions and the reasons behind them. The first thing is to be aware of what is causing you to respond in a certain emotional way. This is what we call the trigger! Was it somebody’s lack of respect, their unfair behaviour, your inner thoughts, or anything else that might cause you to feel that way? Then, you need to be mindful of the way you react to this type of behaviour. Are you getting angry, sad, scared?
- Apply self-regulation: Once you are aware of your trigger, then you will need to control your own emotions and reduce their impact on yourself and others. Here, you need to alleviate your stress levels by taking time to think things over before reacting. So that you can respond (using your head) rather than react (using your emotions). Take a deep breath, count to ten or divert the conversation could be some of the things that you can use to get this (precious) time and to avoid a reaction. Remind yourself of what the trigger is and deal with the facts rather than the emotions. (See Traffic Light below)
- Practice empathy: Much of the time when we get upset with others it is because we take things personally and think the other person is being deliberately “bad” to us. We hardly think that this person might have problems or even issues with their own emotions. Being empathetic means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. This means being aware of the other’s emotions and understanding how that person feels in their situation. Just seeing the other side’s point of view can help us be more empathetic.
- Develop your social skills: This means learning social and life skills that will help you to control your emotional outbursts. This could be anything from learning how to listen actively, how to read body language cues, be a respectful communicator or resolve conflicts well.
- Stress management: Finally, this is a particularly crucial step to learn in every walk of life. When we are emotionally overwhelmed, our stress level elevates too. Learning relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, mindful meditation, yoga, or guided imagery, will help us to manage our emotions better and respond to inconvenient situations rather than react to them!
Quick Tip: The Traffic Light Technique
RED
Stop | Wait | Pause
Don’t act or move before getting to Amber
AMBER (Orange)
• Name the problem
• Say to yourself how you feel
• Try to feel the emotion and where it sits in your body
(Heart beating, flushed, shaking)
• Think if you need to respond
• If so, how? (Count to 10)
GREEN
Once you have controlled your feelings and thought of a better way to respond, then take that action.
Go!
