Dealing with Anger

Dealing with Anger
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we outlined the importance of channelizing each emotion for positive turnout in the workplace and each emotion needs different strategies, now let us understand more about dealing with anger as an emotion.
 
When do we get angry at the workplace?

Most of the time, we do get angry when things are not going as we expect. Typically, the following are some of the scenarios we lose coolness or normal state and get into the agonized mood.

1. When someone repeatedly says something against our views, and we are in a situation neither to accept others' opinions nor in a position to convince others to our views.
2. When someone is pointing us for fault with or without logic, and we are in a position not to accept our failure openly. Also, not in a position to defend our case.
3. When we have higher expectations or standards on something or someone and, in reality, when we face less than expectation or standard, suddenly, the anger burst out.

You can think and relate some of your experiences where you get the anger.

In all the above situations, you can see some typical patterns as follows.

1.NON -ACCEPTANCE of the reality in a particular moment
2.Our INABILITY or lack of courage and skill to face (Helplessness)
3.Lack of patience to get the full picture
 
The internal pattern manifests outside either by way of shouting or abusing or hitting physically or going out of self-control.

Whether anger is bad all the times?
 
Anger is one of the natural emotions, and we can not outrightly say it is wrong. The anger becomes worthless only when it is used for silly reasons with the inappropriate people.

When anger is used for higher purposes with the right people, it turns out to be positive and the right people also perceive it in a proper perspective.

One of the best examples of converting the anger into the positive turnout would be Mahatma Gandhi's life as we read when he faced the humiliation by the British which turned out as anger. Instead of directing the anger to give it back either by way of verbal or physical violence against the British, he channelized the anger into a nonviolent momentum and created a new history.
 
When we read such a historical incident, we move on as extraordinary incidents.

But in a  day to day life, some effective people are good at channelizing their anger into a positive experience and let us discuss those real examples next week.!

(Appreciate your personal experience of how the anger impacts you at the workplace!)

 

Channelizing the emotions

Channelizing the emotions 
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we have discussed the first part of managing emotions in the workplace as "self-awareness, "the second part is "channelizing the emotions" for the growth.
 
What is meant by channelizing the emotions?
 
Every moment we are undergoing different emotions like happiness, sadness, fear, frustrations, anger, and so on. We have two choices in recognizing and managing emotions. Either we use it for our advantage or turn it for a disaster for us and our surroundings. Channelizing the emotion is more about how to recognize the emotion and direct it for betterment for us and the surroundings.
 
Why the channelizing the emotion is important?
 
When we do not know how to channelize the emotions, it hits us back by way of losing peace, losing focus on higher-level growth-oriented activities. Sometimes when we are not keeping the perspective right, the emotions affect our health as well.
 
Hence awareness is required to handle different emotions with different methods as we are dealing with a mix of both positive and negative emotions in everyday transactions with others.
 
For example,
 
In our workplace, predominately, we have the following emotions in our day to day interactions with our colleagues/team/boss and even with the customers.

• Anger (when the things do not happen  as we expect)
• Jealous (when some of our colleague's / competitor does well than us)
• Frustration (when we do not see the result for our effort, or someone does not recognize our work)
• Insecure (when we do not know the direction of future on job/business)
• Feeling low (we do not know what to do in a particular moment; less motivated)
• Irritation (when we work with the person whom we do not like to work)

You can add on the list from your experience!

Each emotion calls for different strategies to channelize the emotions and if we are aware, that will help us for growth.

Let us discuss each emotion and the method of channelizing in the coming weeks!

Aware of Life Balancing

Aware of Life Balancing
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 

As we are discussing the importance of self-awareness in managing emotions, one more methodology of self-awareness is to be aware of your balancing status in all aspects of life.

Some people list up to 24 aspects of life. To simplify it, i classify the life aspects into six areas like professional growth, relationship, health, wealth, maturity, and social contribution, as shown in the below radar chart. We should progress in all aspects at the same pace. That is  Life balancing.

When you measure the current balancing profile status in each aspect, you become aware of improvement areas.


                                           
You can do self-assessment in each aspect and see yourself about balancing profile.

For example,

on professional growth, considering your education, experience, if you feel, you have grown in the professional front in terms of contribution, monetary benefits, and social status, rate yourself on the higher side and vice versa.

Similarly, on the health front, rate yourself depending upon your health conditions.

On wealth aspects, rate yourself on your capability on earning, saving, investment, and spending aspects. On relationship aspects, you can measure your relationship quality with your circle.

Likewise, in all the categories, do the self-assessment and measure your balancing aspects. If you find some imbalanced profile, that will give you awareness of the focus area.

When i administer this assessment in my workshop, the result brings eye-opening experience for the participants as i think this is one of the powerful self-awareness tools for self-awareness.

The point is self-awareness is the starting point for all emotional management in the professional environment.

More you are aware of yourself in terms of values, beliefs, strengths, areas for improvement, purpose, organizing self, better you are on emotional management.

Let us discuss more on channelizing the emotions in next week. 

Finding your Purpose

Finding your Purpose
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we have been discussing the methodologies of being aware of self, the last one in the effort of self-awareness is finding the purpose of existence.

Some people are gifted to aware of their purpose at a young age and channelizing their energy in fulfilling the purpose. For others, the purpose has to be realized by asking the question themselves continuously. It is not a one-time effort, and this pursuit of search is a life long exercise.

In my opinion, we need to explore the purpose of life in two layers to avoid the complexity, one at a spiritual level and another at a materialistic level.

Most of the spiritual masters mention that the purpose of life is to live happily and peacefully, or some refer the purpose is to attempt to break the birth-death-rebirth cycle. Have we reached that level of maturity in awareness and practice it? That is one level of exploration.

From a materialistic perspective, we need to be sure about the purpose from our service point of view. We need to ask question ourselves, "what is the purpose of my existence? What am I doing with my background, education, experience, passion, and am i living meaningful or impactful?  When you ask this question frequently, you will get some insights about the macro-level purpose, at least from a materialistic perspective rather than not being sensitive to life. That is another level of exploration.

The most significant benefit of knowing the purpose is that we get clarity on the sense of direction, clarity on our thoughts and actions. When both thoughts and actions are aligned, we move towards the mastering of our emotions at the professional front.

My experience is that the effort to find the purpose will make you understand yourself better.

Depending on the individual's level of evolution, he/ she chooses to explore the purpose either from a materialistic or spiritual perspective. That exploration brings more awareness of self!