Are You Managing Your Emotions?

Emotion is a feeling we all experience in our daily lives, it is often the driving force behind our motivation, positive or negative. According to American psychologist Paul Elkman research led him to classify there are six basic emotions; anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise.

Our emotions are determined by our reaction to the situation good or bad, so it not the result that matters it’s how you deal with it, so you have a choice whether you will choose to manage your emotions or let your emotions manage you.

“When we direct our thoughts properly, we can control our emotions.” – W. Clement Stone

For example you have been driving the same way to work and leaving home at roughly the same time now for months and one morning on route you find yourself in a long queue of traffic on a part of your journey that is usually clear, and you can’t see from where you are what is causing the traffic.

What would be your reaction/s?

• Frustration – feeling impatient because the traffic is preventing you from getting to work on-time.
• Anger – wanting to shout at someone because you feel this is not fair what is happening to you.
• Worry – feeling nervous and upset because you keep thinking about some of the problems you could face for being late into work.
• Disappointment – unhappy because you are unexpectedly stuck in traffic.
• Happy – not worried about what time you get to work. I’m stuck in traffic and that’s it.

Time is very precious so you need to ensure you use it wisely don’t spend too much time feeling sorry for yourself, when things don’t go the way you planned  or expected, instead try to turn it into something positive.

• Awareness – recognise your reaction to the situation, until you become consciously aware of your emotions they will control you.
• Triggered – which thought/s caused the emotion and made you react the way you did?
• Options – question your reaction to the situation, consider different possibilities. Your emotions are in control when you presume you have only one option.
• Choice – Make a conscious decision how you will react to get a positive outcome.

See every setback as a valuable lesson and learn from it, and in turn you will experience great control.

“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” Daniel Goleman