Managing emotions when home working
More on successful home working
by Andy Britnell
In my previous post I described the importance of Emotional Intelligence for successful home working. Because out of control emotions make smart people stupid! And that applies to any situation, including home working.
As an Aikido black belt student I have learned over the years that the only way to deal with a difficult situation – like five big blokes attacking you one after the other – is to remain calm.
Only then can you access the resources to think straight and handle the issue efficiently and elegantly.
However our automatic response to a perceived attack or a disappointing experience is often chemical and somehow out of our control. So emotions like anger, frustration, fear, worry etc can suddenly take us by surprise when we’re home working. The most important thing is to recognise the emotion, be able to identify exactly what it might be and then manage it in some way.
However on the other side of the coin, how do we manage positive emotions such as joy, enthusiasm, fulfillment? We experience those too when we’re home working! Can we actually develop the ability to generate these feelings more often?
When we apply this to successful home working you probably remember the times when everything seemed to be going pear-shaped. Your pipeline was dry as you’d been far too busy to concentrate on sales and marketing, and you’d start to worry where the next job was coming from.
Or alternatively you just had a big order and were dancing with joy only to realise that cash flow might be an issue as they would pay you after delivery and you wouldn’t be able to pay your suppliers for raw materials.
So both failure and success can create negative emotions. And you know what happens when we are gripped with fear or worried about what’s going on in the future. Our mind is moved, we lose our anchor and end up feeling like a cork in a rough sea.
The good news is that we can learn to be emotionally intelligent and can control our mind gradually with a few useful practices. It might be as simple as:
- going for a walk.
- listening to your favourite music.
- remembering some of the good times you’ve had in your life.
- or find someone who can teach you some useful tips and techniques to develop your self awareness, manage your emotions and make home working more enjoyable and profitable.
In my coaching practice I’ve helped many people manage negative emotions, and they find that they are more successful in their business, in their relationships and in their lives.
Andy is a trainer and coach with a track record of helping people to develop their personal and business skills to achieve their ambitions. In response to demand he combines this with his knowledge of SEO in his blogging coaching, which helps new and frustrated bloggers to make their voice heard in the most effective way.
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I go for walks a lot as the exercise gets the nervous energy out of my system, whatever the emotion is. I walk until I start swinging my arms, which is what happens when I’m feeling calmer.
When it’s a very busy time – like now – I just make sure I get out. It can be down to ‘To-do – put on boots’ as I can usually manage that, and then I just walk out the door with my internal protests ringing in my ears 🙂
Hahaha. Nice one Rosie.
Yes sometimes we have to ignore the protesting gremlin that seems to want us to hold on to the emotion rather than swing it out.
another way to deal with the internal voice is to imagine it’s coming from somewhere else like your big toe!
It’s really quite difficult to take your big toe seriously.
Otherwise you can change the tonality of the internal voice by making it sound like Donald Duck.
Your suggestion is better somehow in that you get the extra benefit of some exercise 🙂
Being watched by a bright eyed robin as I crunch through the frozen leaves, it’s rather good at reminding me It’s Only A Website. Etc.
If that doesn’t work, it’s something that has got under my skin and needs to be dealt with properly.
So true! Brilliant post.
Thanks, Kaitlyn, easier said than done at times, isn’t it?
Oh, of course. But anything that helps us grow as a person isn’t going to be easy.
Hi Kaitlyn That may be a bit of a limiting belief that change is hard or difficult!
Can you remember a time when change was easy?
Maybe we remember the change that was painful and forget when we changed with ease and elegance.
Andy
Language assumption. I said it wasn’t going to be easy, I didn’t say that I thought things that weren’t easy had to be painful. Difficult doesn’t mean ‘bad’.
Example – I’m learning British Sign Language. It’s extremely challenging at times and can be very difficult. I’m enjoying it immensely and learning a brilliant new skill. It’s not easy, I love it, and it’s helping me grow.