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As an executive coach, I invest a great deal of time in helping people get unstuck. And I repeatedly see three key reasons where they ensnared. We all want to be happy to get along, to have great lives. The tricky part is we don’t live in a vacuum, we must interact with others. This can be the best part of life and yet at times the most challenging.
Here are my top three “get unstuck fast neuroscience-based ” tools:
Catch Trouble Before You’re Entangled
You’re bopping along, having a great day, then you get blindsided by someone’s unpleasant behavior. Why? It’s their thing—not yours. Why avoid conflict or get angry? It’s all about energy. Emotions have energy, and you have a choice as to whether you absorb that energy or not.
Here’s how we absorb it and let it bum our high:
- Fear – you fear the person or fear they have power over you, your finances, your future
- Judgment – you judge the person or situation
- Attachment – you think something needs to be a certain way, must occur, and you’re attached to getting that
All three cause you to become emotionally entangled, and then you’re in trouble. Let’s be conscious of this as leaders since solving problems is often a part of our job. So the next time a buzzkill comes your way—stop, pause, and notice your response. Are you reacting with fear? Judging the person? Feeling attached to a certain outcome? Stop. Feel it. Then choose differently. Choose to let them have their experience, but do not make it yours!
Realize Your Ego-Mind Wants To Make You Unhappy
Have you ever noticed that your mind is always talking? All the time. We know from both Wayne Dyer’s research and the NSA that a human has about 60,000 thoughts per day and 90% of them are repetitive. That’s nuts!
What would happen if you didn’t think so much? Have you ever had that experience—when you’ve stopped the relentless dialog in your mind. Try it.
Focus on your breath, inhale for a count of seven through your nose, hold for a count of seven, exhale for a count of seven through your mouth. Do this at least seven times in a row and you’ll start to get still. The mind needs a project. It’s ok to give it the task of counting to get still as you do a parasympathetic nervous system reset.
Next, when you return to thinking, step back and witness what your mind says. Does it complain? Pout? Rage? Thoughts generate energy. You can always stop or at least slow down your thoughts.
Be careful what energy you fill your life with.
Mike Dooley of Tut says, “a young soul learns to take responsibility for their actions, a mature soul learns to take responsibility for their thoughts, and a wise soul learns to take responsibility for their happiness.” Why not be a wise soul?
Consciously Develop Your Emotional Intelligence
To be a conscious leader we eventually embrace neuroscience-based emotional intelligence. Let’s talk about the two aspects of it. Personal competence is our self-awareness and ability to regulate our emotions. Social competence is our awareness of the emotional experience of others and our ability to navigate the emotions of others.
How aware are you of your emotions? Do you know how you’re feeling at any given time? Our feelings are how we navigate our experiences. Grab our emotion wheel from the www.poweryourtribe.com website resources section to check in on yourself. Next, are you able to witness your emotions and not get swept up in them? This is where mindfulness and meditation helps. As we learn to slow our thoughts down we gain the ability to be less wrapped up in our own emotional dramas.
As we deepen our awareness of ourselves we can then have more compassion for the emotional experiences of others, which enables us to navigate conflict more easily, give others a break when they’re stuck, and help them get unstuck. We notice that we don’t take another person’s emotional outburst personally. We can witness it without being wrapped up in it.
Net-Net
Humans take on the emotions of others when they fear, judge or get attached to what the person is to them or represents. It’s essential to manage the relentless chatter of our ego mind in order to have both inner peace and behavioral choice
Emotional intelligence is something we learn, and work at, daily
Where would you like to grow?
Christine Comaford is a leadership and culture coach who helps businesses achieve growth. Learn more at SmartTribes Institute and see Power Your Tribe: Create Resilient Teams in Turbulent Times and SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
