Emotional Reactions & Productivity
Automatic, negative responses to people or events often indicate a hypersensitivity that’s referred to as “getting your buttons pushed.” These emotional reactions can limit career advancement, destroy relationships and cap the level of success you might achieve in many aspects of life. Usually, these sensitivities have their origins in hurtful childhood experiences, such as repeatedly being criticized, rejected or controlled.
In the last newsletter, I explored the importance of knowing the why behind your what. I’m following up this month with the topic of emotional reactions because it has a huge impact on our ability or inability to remain productive towards the goals we set for ourselves.
One of the biggest indicators of success has to do with your emotional IQ; in other words your ability to manage your emotions in the face of stress. Do you over-react to situations that are not to your liking or are you able to recognize you don’t like how you’re feeling and still manage to make good choices in behavior?
If you’re not sure below are two sets of questions, true or false, to discover how well you manage your emotional reactions.
Set 1
1. When anyone critiques my work—constructively or not—I tend to shut down and withdraw or feel ashamed.
2. When someone hurts me—for instance, if they fail to acknowledge my contribution—I lash out at them or blame myself.
3. I hate it when someone tells me I’m “too sensitive.”
4. When someone says or does something that makes me mad, it takes me a long time to let go of it. I often carry resentment.
5. Sometimes I have no idea why I respond to people the way I do—I just can’t control myself.
Set 2
1. If I feel inordinately upset or angered by something at work, rather than blaming someone for making me feel what I’m feeling, I take a deep breath and then take an honest look at myself to see what I can learn from the situation.
2. When I feel “triggered,” I know it often has nothing to do with the person who pushed my buttons.
3. If after I have calmed down and returned to a professional state of mind, I find that a current situation needs to be addressed, I do so in a constructive manner.
4. I’m familiar with the situations to which I am most likely to overreact. More quickly now I recognize when my buttons have been pushed, and I am less reactive.
5. When my buttons do get pushed now, I can see any unresolved personal issues needing my attention. I can then return my focus to my work.
If you answered true more often in Set 1 and false more often in Set 2, you might wish to learn how to deal more effectively with your emotional responses. A great place to start is to learn how your brain responds to stress and how to manage your stress response more effectively.
Author’s content used under license, © 2010 Claire Communications
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This is a simple, yet thorough program, that breaks down the physiological and psychological impacts of stress and provides simple and effective techniques to apply daily to take control of your stress.
Stress is a common condition that is created from a triggering stimulus. The triggering stimulus can be internal or external; the result, however, is a change in the chemical balance of the body. This chemical change compromises health and performance both physically and mentally. This program quickly and easily teaches you how to change that chemical process so that the body can return to a state of homeostasis and perform at peak levels.
Distress Less is a four module series complete with worksheets and recordings. Below is a brief overview. Each module is around 20 minutes or less.
Module One clarifies the two different types of stress and provides a stress self-analysis quiz and a body scan exercise to recognize stress triggers.
Module Two explains the stress activation process in the brain and how this impacts the autonomic the nervous system.
Module Three explores the affect of thoughts on stress and how breathing can turn on or off the fight/flight/freeze reaction of the nervous system.
Module Four looks at how stress can become an addiction and provides a quick and simple stress management tool to train the brain to better manage stress.
