Q. Sometimes at work, you feel angry or
distressed and lose your composure, snapping at your colleagues or wanting to
burst into tears. How can you defuse your feelings before you act on them?
A. When you are losing control emotionally, it’s
hard to step back and see what’s really happening, says Lynn Friedman, a psychologist,
psychoanalyst and career consultant in Washington.
When you feel an intense reaction at work, ask yourself if
it’s realistic and reasonable. Sometimes what’s driving those intense feelings
has little to do with what’s happening at the time. “It could have more to do
with your professional relationship with this person, circumstances that led up
to this upsetting event, self-confidence — or it could spring from earlier life
experiences,” Dr. Friedman says.
Rather than reacting in the moment, buy yourself some time
by saying: “This is disappointing to me and I want to think about it. Can we
talk about it in a day or two?” Then try to look at what is angering and
upsetting you as objectively as possible. “If, for example, you’re very
disappointed about a decision affecting a project of yours, think about what
might be behind that decision,” Dr. Friedman says.
Your reactions could even be linked to your childhood. If,
for example, your boss speaks to you in a patronizing way that upsets you, “it
could be that you’re not thinking like a 40-year-old man but catapulted back to
being a 4-year-old boy whose father is arrogant and condescending,” she says.
Making connections like that can help you recognize your emotional triggers and
control your responses.
It might help to vent by writing down your feelings and
thoughts, says Deborah Grayson Riegel, founder of Elevated
Training in Hewlett, N.Y. The writing process may help you resolve
your feelings — and you may want to share what you’ve written with friend, a
spouse or someone at work you trust. “That person can read it and tell you if
they see something in the situation you aren’t seeing,” Ms. Riegel says.
Q. Can suppressing feelings like anger,
frustration or sadness affect your performance?
A. Yes. We avoid expressing emotions at work by
twisting ourselves in all kinds of ways, creating an enormous amount of stress,
says Karen Steinberg, a therapist and coach specializing in work and
relationships and founder of the Possibility Practice, a counseling and
coaching center in Manhattan. Suppression also thwarts creativity, says Ms.
Steinberg, because energy that could be used for creative thinking is being
“siphoned off to help you handle the boss or manage the situation.”
When you keep strong emotions bottled up, you don’t think as
clearly as you do when you’re calm, says Ms. Riegel, who is also the author of
“Oy Vey! Isn’t a Strategy.” “You’re not able to make good judgments,” she says.
“You might have a physical response, too — your heart starts pounding, you get
nauseated or your voice shakes.”
Although you may think you’re doing a good job of containing
your feelings, they usually show in other ways, whether in your facial
expressions, the comments you make or your attitude, says Aubrey Daniels, a
psychologist who is founder of the management consulting firm Aubrey Daniels
International and author of “Bringing Out the Best in People.” He says
stifling your feelings makes you “physiologically uptight, and you are much
less flexible both in your muscles and your thinking.”
Q. Are there socially acceptable ways to
express negative feelings at work?
A. That’s more a question of timing than
anything else, Dr. Friedman says. If possible, give yourself a day to think
about what’s upsetting you. When you do speak to your boss or colleagues, use
the same kind of language they use. If your boss can’t talk about feelings, for
instance, use language that’s more task- and bottom-line-oriented, like, “I
devoted a lot of the organization’s resources and my internal resources to this
project and I’d like to learn more about what happened.”
Being emotional — appearing visibly agitated, red-faced or
raising your voice — is generally considered unprofessional, so you want to
have fully calmed down before you speak to a manager or colleagues. Before you
detail your frustrations, let them know that you value your working
relationship with them, Ms. Riegel says. “Then you can say, ‘Let me explain why
this is a hot button for me,’ and ask, ‘Can you tell me what was going on from
your perspective?’ “
By EILENE ZIMMERMAN
Source: NYTimes
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