Want to be More Productive? Focus on Managing Your Emotions

Womenlines welcomes Anji Hallewell as an Influencer of Positive Mindset on the Womenlines panel. Anji is a Speaker, Coach, Trainer on Self-Mastery & Performance and Founder of Natural Genius Academy. In her sharing for this month, Anji is sharing ultimate tips to how to be more productive in work by managing emotions-

We’ve all been in that situation where you’ve said or done something that you later wish you’d handled differently, but emotions took over. Whether that is snapping at a family member, being too head-strong in a meeting or using the wrong choice of words, there are moments that you wish you could rewind and do differently. Sadly, until such a device exists for you to rewind time, the answer is to get a better handle on your emotions.

I get it, you are a busy professional and you have a lot on your plate. It’s difficult to keep it together all the time and I can assure you that you are not alone. The constant demands, deadlines, meetings, lack of desk time, the growing to-do list and the internal miscommunication is not only chaotic but can push you to your limits!

One of the biggest complaints that I hear from professionals is their self-proclaimed inability to manage their emotions. They know it is happening, but they have no idea what to do about it. So, let me help you a little with this as I know firsthand how draining at can be in you. Here are 3 key things that opened up a different reality for me when it came to managing my emotions:

Your Choice of Words

When you are articulating how you are feeling, to yourself or otherwise, your choice of words are really important. When you get angry, you may say “I am angry”, but are you the anger? Whilst the sky has clouds in it, you don’t mistake the clouds for the sky. It’s the same with you and the emotions that are present. You do not become the emotion; you merely experience the emotion. There is a very subtle, yet impactful, change that you can make in your choice of words. Instead of saying “I am angry” try “I am experiencing anger” instead. It creates distance between you and the emotion, making it clear that it is something separate from you. People often tell me that it somehow doesn’t feel as intense, so it’s less likely to escalate to a point that it completely takes over.

Emotions will Always Pass

The very nature of emotions is that they are bundles of energy. And energy moves. The clue is in the name, e-motion. The energy in motion. Therefore, any emotion that you experience will always move on. As a busy professional working in a multinational, pulling an average of 60-hours per week, I used to get frustrated A LOT! Understanding that it would always pass really helped me because I could remind myself that the feeling of frustration would not last forever. It meant that there was always an end in sight. In a strange kind of way, knowing this generated a sense of hope and peace of mind which made it feel ok.

Don’t Block their Path

Building on from the above point, the learnt tendency when you experience an unpleasant emotion is to clamp down on it – to stop it in its tracks. But all that does is stops it from moving on. It would be like putting the barrier down on a car as it’s trying to exit a carpark and then expecting the car to just disappear. We want to resist unpleasant emotions because we don’t like how they feel. But all emotions are data points for us. They can tell us when someone has overstepped the mark or perhaps when insecurity has been triggered within us. So, instead of seeing some as “good” and others as “bad”, life would be easier if we accepted all emotions as being there, so they can pass on by.

In closing, emotions are everything, they are the driving force behind all your actions, behaviours, words and state of mind. When you treat them equally and understand them, you can take positive steps to manage your emotions and maintaining the status quo. Leaving you feeling calm and collected no matter what is happening. It’s not going to happen overnight, but continual practice will see you on the path to self-mastery. If you want to learn more about how to become the master of your emotions and outcomes, then check out my FREE 2-Hr Event Supercharge Your Success on 22^nd June www.naturalgeniusacademy.com/sys

Anji Hallewell