Self-management of your emotional state is the act of taking responsibility for your emotions. It is a fact that your emotions can affect your decision making process and behaviour. Therefore the ability to be more aware of your emotions and actually taking responsibility for controlling them can help you to be more effective, productive and successful in keeping your goals in sight.
There are several steps to successful self-management:
Self-control is the ability to refrain from knee-jerk reactions in response to your emptions. It is the ability to take a moment to think before you act so you can consider the best course of action. To make sure that what you are about to say / do is in the best interests of yourself and those around you try counting to ten or stepping out of the room for a breather when you can feel yourself getting emotional.
Reframing helps you to alter your reaction to your emotions by changing your self-talk around a situation. When you have a strong emotional reaction to something, without realising it you could be flippantly releasing some strong negative self-talk with that.
Counterproductive things like “No one cares what I think around here”, “I can’t take anymore” or “I’m done trying, they can work it out for themselves”.
These types of statement aren’t helpful and if you allow these emotional reactions to drive your behaviour you will become defeated, angry, quit or damage relationships. Reframing will lead to productive action instead of just negative self-talk. For example “My ideas are sometimes overlooked, perhaps I can get some feedback on the last one” or “I need a break so my frustration doesn’t get the better of me”.
Another way to enhance your self-control is to reflect on what makes you feel out of control in the first place. Some research has found that emotional reactions stem from fear or desire. Your strong emotional reaction is likely to be at tipping point because a fear or desire you have is manifesting your emotional state.
When you understand the fear or desire driving your strong emotional reaction then you can reflect and step back to assess your options.
For example a fear of failure and a desire for success is a common state. If your desire for success is threatened, this awakens your fear of failure. That is 2 separate drivers affecting your core values so off course it’s natural for you to react to these threats right? When you find yourself in this situation ask yourself – is it really a threat? Could I be over-reacting? Is the severity of my reaction truly warranted? What action would be best in this situation?
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