emotional control

Five Questions to Help Maintain a Positive Attitude

/ Scott / Leave a comment

Let’s face it, sometimes unpleasant unexpected things just happen through no fault of our own.  This could be anything from a job loss, to a bad diagnosis from a doctor, to the unexpected death of a loved one.  As challenging as these things may be, we still have the luxury to choose our attitude as we navigate scenarios like these.  Here are 5 questions we can ask to help maintain a positive attitude through a difficult situation:

  1. What were the positive aspects of this scenario before I received the bad news?

It is so easy to let your mind think of all the negative aspects when we receive bad news.  In fact, our minds seem to go there automatically, unless we decide to focus them elsewhere.  With this in mind, choose to look back with an eye on the positive.  Think about experiences gained or relationships formed.  The positives are there, we just have to look for them.

  1. What can I learn from this?

This may sound cliché, but there is something to be learned from every situation.  Think about what you have learned or what you can learn from this situation.  At first, it may seem like there isn’t anything, but if we’re paying attention, we can learn some valuable lessons we might not otherwise have the opportunity to learn.

  1. What does this make possible?

This is my favorite question!  There is something about an unexpected situation that alters what has been normal for us, be it temporary or permanent.  In that alteration, that “new normal”, there are opportunities for us that didn’t exist before.  Identify what they are and how you can take advantage of them to improve your future and your definition of “normal” moving forward.

  1. What am I thankful for?

Even in light of a bad situation, we have much to be thankful for.  Don’t lose focus on what those things are.

  1. How can I use this experience to help others?

Life is more fun when we share the journey with others.  No matter what you’re going through, someone else has gone through it before, or will be going through it after you.  That’s cool on 2 different levels!  First you can find others who have gone through a similar circumstance and seek guidance from them.  Second, after you’ve gone through it, you will be poised to help someone else in the future who is going through a situation you’ve already been through.  What a blessing to be a source of encouragement to someone during what is a dark hour for them.

 

Yes, unexpected and unpleasant situations really stink.  We could go as far to say they really suck.  But how we come through them, and how our future is impacted by them, is largely due to the attitude we have while were in them.

 

Let’s be mindful of this powerful choice we have and decide today, and every day, to keep an attitude that is positive instead of letting a negative attitude take root.  The choice is ours.  Let’s choose wisely.

How to Control Your Emotions

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Wouldn’t you like to know how to control your emotions?  The bad news is… you can’t.  Emotions are going to occur.  They’re part of being human.  But there is good news:  we get to decide how we respond to them.

I recently listened to a podcast interview with B.A.S.E. jumper Jeb Corliss.  During the interview, he talked about how emotions are our body’s way of trying to get us to do something.  Knowing this, we then have to ask ourselves, in the midst of a strong emotion, “Do I want to respond the way my body is telling me to respond?”  That question is powerful, because it correctly implies that we have a choice whether we’ll act the way our emotions are prompting us, or to choose a different response.

I think this is a game-changing realization for anyone with a pulse!  Just because we’re experiencing an emotion doesn’t mean we have react the way the emotion would guide us.  We get to choose our response, not our emotions.  I love that!

Armed with this common-sense awareness has allowed me to recognize situations this week where an emotion was demanding a specific response.  In those moments, that awareness has helped me to turn off the emotion autopilot and choose a different (and usually more appropriate) response.

For example, my wife and I got a new cat last weekend.  As a result of being stressed out and in an unfamiliar environment, our new family member decided our living room sofa would be a better place to relieve himself than the multiple litter boxes we placed around the house.  Upon realizing he was doing this, I felt several emotions, primarily anger and frustration, which both wanted me to do something, namely wring the cat’s neck and put him on Craig’s List respectively.

What I really wanted to do was yell and complain.  In truth, I actually started down the complaining path.  Then I thought of Jeb’s comment about emotions prompting your body to do something.  I realized pretty quickly that the way I was reacting was NOT the way I wanted to respond.

I then focused my thought on what was causing the cat to do this (being stressed out) and what could I do to begin to relieve some of that stress.  The response after these thoughts were more in line with how I wanted to respond and made me feel much better than I did when I was on autopilot spewing complaints.  I feel like I learned a new life-hack this week that will help me make better decisions in my future years.

Things will go wrong and we’ll have emotional reactions, but that doesn’t mean we’re obligated to move in the directions our emotions prompt us.  Fortunately, we can choose different.

Pay attention to your emotions this week.  If they’re prompting you to react in a negative way, first pause, then decide what your best response would be, and then act accordingly.

How Not to be Crotchety

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I believe that the daily realization and internalization of the following statement will keep you from turning into a crotchety old person, regardless of your age:  Everyone is not like you.

I know that’s obvious, but think about how often you’ve been frustrated or upset because someone:

  • Didn’t respond to something the way you thought they should have.
  • Didn’t say the exact words you wanted to hear
  • Didn’t show the same importance toward something as you thought it warranted.
  • Expressed a thought or idea that didn’t agree with the way you think.

These frustrations occur because we are not all alike.  Our experiences, environments, beliefs, and personalities are all different, which causes each of us to think, speak, act, and prioritize differently.

While we usually applaud our differences, I’ve realized recently that I’ve been allowing these differences to needlessly frustrate me.  With regard to colleagues or my spouse, I’ve allowed these differences to create frustration and impact how I respond to and treat others.  In short, it’s negatively impacted my attitude, and it’s time I change.

I realize that the lens I view situations through is not the same lens that everyone else uses.  In fact, the lenses for viewing the world are as varied as the people who inhabit it.  In light of that reality, how can we any of us expect others to always think and behave just like we do?

When I have the displeasure of meeting crotchety people of any age, there is usually a frustration expressed that the world, or at least their little part of it, is not as they would like it.  There is rigidity to their thinking that is unwilling to consider a different point of view.  They often feel that thinks would be better if everyone else just thought the same way about things as they do.  Not only is their mindset unrealistic, it leads to continued frustration and a negative attitude about the people around them.

I don’t want to be like that.  I’m making the decision to be aware of the differences between my thinking and the thinking of others, and to remove my expectation that others should be thinking the same way I do.  While that doesn’t mean I have to agree with everyone’s way of thinking, it does mean that I don’t have to be frustrated by it or have my attitude adversely impacted.  And that sounds good to me!

Seven Tips to Keep from Losing Your Mind to Emotion

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“When emotion goes up, intelligence goes down.”  ~Mari Smith; Social Media Thought Leader

When I heard this quote from Mari Smith on the Entreleadership Podcast, I was instantly able to recall several accounts from my own life when I’ve been in this very situation.  I cringed, because, unfortunately, those have not been some of my finest moments!

What about you?  Have you ever been in a position where you feel the emotion rising, while at the same time your intelligence waning?  It’s not a good feeling.  Historically, I haven’t realized this was occurring until after the conversation or interaction where it occurred.  By then, it’s too late to change course because common sense and better judgement have already left the station.

So what can we do to keep from losing our minds when we notice our emotions starting to heat up?  Here are 7 suggestions to keep emotions from depleting our intelligence.

  1. Know the types of interactions that cause you to become emotionally charged so that you can either avoid them or be aware of the possibility of reacting emotionally.
  2. Know how you react physically when you’re emotionally charged. Do your hands get sweaty, your face get warm, or you ears get hot?  Knowing how you react can help you identify when you’re becoming emotionally charged.
  3. Determine in advance how you will respond when you feel yourself becoming emotionally charged. If we don’t know how we’ll respond in that moment, we’ll likely put ourselves on auto pilot and let emotions take over.  Usually not a good option.
  4. In the moment, take a few deep breaths. I know this sounds cliché, but it works.
  5. Put things in perspective. Ask yourself what’s at stake and determine if it’s really worth getting worked up for.
  6. Look for something positive like humor, a silver lining, or opportunities to connect with the other side on a human level.
  7. Decide not to get worked up.  This may sound hard, but we have far more control over our emotions than we realize.

There seems to be no shortage of things to spin us up and charge our emotions.  The good news is that this gives us a lot of opportunity to practice the tips above.

Being emotionally charged up and momentarily losing our intelligence does not help us to be at our best.  Decide today to be in charge of your emotions and not a follower of them.  That sounds good to me, because I can’t afford to lose any of the precious little intelligence I have!