The Smart Way to Respond to Negative Emotions at Work

The smart way to respond to negative emotions at work. How many times have you had negative emotions rise up inside of you, take control of you, within a heartbeat, when:

• Someone gives you THAT look…
• A very important deadline is missed…
• An intense argument with a colleague…
• You don’t get the promotion…
• You lose a major sale…

You feel, angry, sad, let down, cheated, misunderstood, even fearful, depressed, or guilty.

With these negative feelings (States of Mind) now taking over your intellectual property (logic & reason) you find yourselves operating out of your reptilian brain, the fight or flight brain.

Now you are on a downward spiral which can be very unproductive and takes hours, days, or even weeks for some people to completely get over it and recover.

To remain in this “state of mind” is not smart and very unproductive for yourself, those around you, and your work KPIs. So what is the smart way to respond to negative emotions at work?

The Smart Way to Respond to Negative Emotions at Work.

Prevention is better than cure: firstly, we want to understand how our emotions (positive & negative) are activated. Once we are aware of how our emotions come to the surface, we can then exert more conscious control from having our negative emotions fully activated at work.

Once an emotion has come to the surface and you engage in it, it’s so much harder to control. We want to head it off at the pass before it even gets a chance, that’s why prevention is going to be more successful than cure.

2 pathways from emotions to results:

Pathway No 1

Focus = Negative story = Negative emotions = Negative behavior = Negative results.

Pathway No 2

Focus = Positive story = Positive emotions = Positive behavior = Positive results.

The Process:

FOCUS: What we focus on in the workplace via our five senses we take into our mind as raw data. Once we have taken in these sensory inputs we will now need to give them a meaning to make sense of them.

We give them meaning based on our own life experience, values, beliefs, culture, previous conditioning, memory, etc… We can call this our personal filter.

STORY: Now that we have calculated the meaning via our own personal filter we come up with one of 2 stories.

Firstly, we create a story that what we just experienced was bad, not good, and should not have happened.

Or…

Secondly, we create a story that what we just experienced was good, wonderful, and happy that it happened.

EMOTIONS: Now listen up! This is super important. This next stage is going to be impacted by the positive or negative story you created in your last step.

If you created a positive story you will elicit positive emotions that will very quickly come to the surface for you to experience and act upon. Emotions and feelings like happiness, passion, excitement, attractiveness, etc…

If you created a negative story you will elicit negative emotions that will very quickly come to the surface for you to experience and act upon. Emotions and feelings like anger, frustration, sadness, hate, repulsiveness, etc…

BEHAVIOR: Our emotions are the drivers of our behavior. That’s right! Whatever emotions, positive or negative, that come to the surface of our mind and body, we will experience and act upon, hence our behavior.

Positive emotions will elicit positive behavior while negative emotions will elicit negative behavior.

Once our emotions are running around in our body, our body becomes the mind and produces the relevant behavior.

RESULTS: The final step of this process will end up with one of 2 results.

Either positive or negative results at work.

Our behavior, short or long term is producing results in our lives. A regular behavior then becomes a habit. If we continue to practice this habit daily it will become part of our identity.

Our identity is made up of what follows, what we say, I AM………… to.

I AM happy, I AM confident, I AM tired, I AM angry, I AM broke, etc…

…………………………………………………………..

The Solution

The solution to the smart way to respond to negative emotions at work is to make up GOOD STORIES. Make up good, positive stories so our negative emotions never get a chance to be on display at work. Because once you go down that track it is extremely hard to turn that train wreck around.

For example:

You arrive at work in the morning and as you’re walking down the corridor you say good morning to one of your colleagues. They completely ignore you as if you’re not even there and keep walking.

Story time.

Your job now is to go inside of your mind and create a positive story like:

• He must be thinking about an important project and didn’t even see me…
• He must be working on a deadline and is completely focused elsewhere…
• He has a serious problem he needs to find a solution to immediately and didn’t even see me…
• He may have just got some bad news and he is in his head (closed his five senses) and is trying to deal with the situation…

Does our story have to be true?

NO, it doesn’t need to be a true story!

We are making up positive (make-believe) stories to stop our minds from making up a negative story (which in most cases, isn’t true either) that will create a disaster if not averted.

The best communicators, people with very high Emotional Intelligence (EQ) are awesome storytellers. They know how to manage their emotions and create positive, desired, outcomes, consistently in their professional and personal lives.

This is one of the very first strategies I share with my clients during our Executive Coaching Services to ensure immediate client results in their professional and personal lives.

Become a master storyteller and say goodbye to negative emotions at work and enjoy the positive deep, empowering, relationships you will develop with all your fellow work colleagues, family members, and friends.

Paul Simos is an accomplished Executive Life Coach, Health Coach & Certified Trainer.
He has a fundamental belief about his clients which frames how they work together i.e. they already have everything they need to achieve success. His role as a coach is to stimulate and challenge his clients to unlock their successful beliefs, skills, and behavior patterns.

Free Masterclass Training, How To Get More Successful Outcomes In Your Professional & Personal Relationships… By Saying “NO” (The Right Way)…