Fact or Fiction? Good business and emotions don’t mix!
Are they two distinctly separate areas not to be mixed?
There’s some truth to this yet where do you draw the line?
It’s not so appealing to think that you need to be robotic and disassociated when it comes to your feelings and expressing emotions in the business world.
How emotions affect business:
We’re naturally emotional beings and so often that fact gets ignored.
We’re forced to push our feelings to the back of the room for business sake!
As a professional in any area, its easy to embrace the idea of separating our work from our personal emotions. There’s a fine line between sharing our feelings too much or not enough.
If you’ve ever felt stagnant and repressed in the business you’ve created, it might be time to take a step back and examine any preconceived notions about emotions.
Creating a life and business we desire is an emotional roller coaster at times, and in the long run disconnecting from our deepest sentiments isn’t good for our business.
Lets examine a few of the 7 Myths on How Our Emotions Affect Our Business and how they hold us back from achieving our maximum potential and finding lasting success!
1. Catharsis is the best way to release negative emotions
There’s a fine line between expressing our emotions and venting. Communication works best when we have a clear idea in our minds of what it is that we wish to express. Word vomit is the direct result of getting caught up in the emotion and expressing it without a filter.
Even passive aggressive actions spurred from pent up frustrations, like throwing things or hitting a punching bag have been shown to feed the flames of our anger. The results of one study directly oppose the theory of using aggressive yet harmless tactics as catharsis. The study found that people who ruminated on an angry thought or experience while hitting a punching bag were more angry than those who simply let their anger mellow.
Allowing time and space for stress hormones to subside before confronting the problem is wise. We can express our emotions in a more clear well thought out manner when the hormonal influence of cortisol isn’t so strong.
2. Having control over our emotions is too robotic
Isn’t it the worst when you meet someone and they are closed off and unwilling to connect. Whether or not its in business or every day life, it comes across as cold and distant. We don’t want to be like that, with our clients or colleagues, but at the same time we can’t be too open.
So where do we draw the line between openness and a touch of mystery? The truth is we have to listen to our guts. If its truly necessary to bare your soul in order to get the message across, do it. If you can clearly communicate with empathy your colleagues and clients will feel like they can connect to the a human, while still not getting all tangled up in a whirlwind of out of control emotions.
3. Emotions are either good or bad
So often we place our feelings in categories of positive and negative. Its easy to place our sufferings in a box of good or bad, it’s harder to accept that these feelings are a part of our human experience. Joy and excitement are fabulous, but they also can’t last forever. Without the ebb and flow of emotion our lives would be monotonous and boring.
Instead of pushing the feelings we tend to think of as negative to the side, just accept them. They’re less likely to linger in the back of the mind if we can accept that they exist and that they will eventually pass.
4. We can leave our feelings at home
Come on now, it’s never that easy, we can’t just disassociate from our personal lives because it’s time to get to work. One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is we have the choice to work more when we’re most efficient. Taking time off to deal with deeper issues isn’t a sign of weakness.
5. Negative emotions and stress don’t affect your body
Not only do negative emotions and stress inhibit our ability to think clearly, they also dramatically effect our bodies. When we’re stressed our bodies enter fight or flight mode. We can’t differentiate between a small stress and a big one, either way our bodies perceive it as a life and death situation. This leads to increased muscular tension, poor digestion, difficulty losing weight, increased risk of heart disease and diabetes and much more.
Dealing with our emotions in the moment helps relieve stress in the body. Techniques like deep breathing or going for a walk can work wonders.
6. Other people make me feel like […]
Blaming others for how we feel negates our responsibility for our own feelings. When we find out the root of any given trigger its easy to see that its not the other persons fault. Taking things too personally is certain to result in unnecessary pain.
The reality is others can trigger us, but it is our trigger and up to us to deal with it. The blame game only perpetuates stress and anxiety. Much peace is granted to those willing to take responsibility.
7. I should just brush it off and forget about it
Has anyone ever told you to just brush it off and move on? It’s really hard to do when your upset and often that well meaning advice has the opposite effect. Sitting with our pain, acknowledging it for what it is, a very normal and human experience, is the best way to eventually let it go. Unfortunately our emotions aren’t a t-shirt that we can just rip off any time we please. Integrate, reflect and don’t think you’re not allowed to be an emotional being.
Vulnerability is a part of life, in everything that we do it takes opening up and being susceptible to forces out of our control. When we have our own businesses it makes us all the more vulnerable.
After all it puts us in a position of responsibility that can bear quite a burden if we aren’t confident in our abilities. Be brave enough to accept your feelings, and when appropriate make them heard and understood. Enough with this tip-toing around our emotions, I think by now most of us see it isn’t working! Like in any relationship, communication is key.
What are your thoughts on the relationship between work and emotions? We love hearing from you!
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