Achieving effective communication and improving relationships at work is possible if you manage your emotions and feelings through emotional intelligence (EI). To achieve this, you have some strategies you can apply to have emotional self-control at work.
Let's see how EI and work life are related.
How is emotional intelligence and professional life related?
Through emotional intelligence you can learn to identify, recognize and decide what emotions you want to feel in your life. In addition to that, it helps you to recognize emotions in coworkers and create a better work environment.
Why is it important to manage emotions at work?
Imagine that you want to stop feeling anxiety at work every day. For example, imagine the following situations:
- The person in charge of your team is too hard or harsh with you.
- You are overwhelmed by the intensity and pressure at work.
- You are bothered by the behavior of a colleague or colleague
- You need more peace and harmony in your office
All these situations generate different emotions such as anxiety, disappointment, grief or displeasure. To prevent them from affecting your emotional health, you need to identify when they occur and how to manage them in order to act in the best way.
In this way, you can:
- Strengthen your work relationships
- Manage stress
- Increase your productivity
- Feel motivated
What is a toxic work environment?
How can you learn to manage your emotions at work?
There are different steps you can take to manage your emotions. Let's take a look at some of them:
1. Control your emotions through techniques 2.
To control negative emotions such as stress and anxiety you can use control techniques such as:
- Breathing techniques and muscle control
- Mindfulness: full mental concentration
- Physical activities to release tension
2. Be aware of the moments
Identify the moments where you feel anxiety or other emotions and what triggers them, so you can apply emotional self-management.
What can trigger those emotions? Some stressors can be:
- Work overload
- Pressure from hierarchy
- Fear of failure
- Ambiguity of responsibilities
- Pressure of results
- Relationship with colleagues
- Bonds with your collaborators
- Physical fatigue
When you identify the situation that triggers the emotions you have, you can:
- React differently
- Manage emotions in a positive way
- Communicate positively
- Move away from the problem
3. Look for stimuli to generate positive emotions
To feel happier you can look for stimuli that generate that emotion. These can be of the following type:
- Visual: beautiful images, pleasant colors
- Mental: visualization, coaching, meditation
- Emotional: knowing how you feel, what you would like to feel, welcoming other people and encouraging them, self-motivation.
- Communicative: talking to everyone, encouraging communication, collaborating to organize an event.
Practical exercises for managing emotions in the workplace
One way to practice managing your emotions is through the following exercise:
Write down in which situations you would like to change your emotions in the professional environment and make a small action plan on what you are going to learn, initiate or perform to achieve it.
Follow these steps:
- In what situations do you want to feel different?
- What can you learn?
- What actions can you take?
- What activities can you initiate to achieve it?
- When are you going to do it?
Contribution created by Alexandra Barrero.
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