You wake up
after a bad night’s sleep, and you see there is a voicemail on your answering
machine. It is your boss, explaining how the work you spent all of your
Saturday doing was not “up to par” and you needed to redo it by the next day.
He did not give you feedback about your work, not to mention any recognition
for your hours spent trying to do your best. How do you feel?
Most likely,
your gut reaction is frustration. How could he!? Doesn’t he have any respect?
Your work was a useful contribution! All too often we get stuck in this zone of
frustration, sitting in the bitterness, and acting reactively as opposed to
constructively (e.g. drafting emails that you know will likely later regret,
reviewing all the “coulda, woulda shouldas”… ) You may even realize that you
need to cool off before plunging into the impending deadline but decide to plug
on through because time is of the essence and you want this frustration to pass
ASAP.
I want to offer
a key step in this sequence of events that we all too often forget: calming your physiology.
When you are
frustrated or flooded with emotions in general, your body enters “fight or
flight” mode. What this means is that
you are actually in a different area of brain that makes it impossible to
engage your frontal cortex, the area that is responsible for all reason and
rational thought. Therefore spending
energy trying to be reasonable in this scenario is futile, that is, unless you
calm you body down first. By calming your body, you exit “fight or flight” mode
and are able to access your more rational side. Concentrating on calming your
system before trying to problem solve, will put you in a far better place to
actually address the problem and save more time down the road.
But, you ask,
how can we calm our bodies down when we are so frustrated?? There are many
methods we can do this and some common ones include: deep concentrated breathing,
counting out loud, doing something physical like going for a walk or run,
asking a friend or partner for a hug…anything that soothes your body. This
sounds so simple, and yet all too often we rush into action planning that
requires complex thought processing in order to “fix” the source of
frustration.
I challenge you
to come up with some creative ways that you can calm your body down when you
notice yourself feeling flooded, frustrated, or flustered. Do so when you are
calm so you can access the full potential of your brilliant frontal cortex! And
when challenges come up, as they always do, practice practice practice your
tools. Once your body is calm, you will be amazed at how much better you can
cope with challenges.
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