Chapter 5
Cognitive and Behavioral Strategies for Managing Your Emotions
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the impact of self-awareness on emotional self-management
how thoughts and behaviors influence your emotions
behavioral strategies for managing your emotions
cognitive strategies for managing your emotions
how to EQuip Yourself for emotional self-management.
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What is change?
What does it mean to make lasting, individual, behavioral change toward improving performance?
This is an important question to ask in our fast-paced, do-more-with-less, focus-on-productivity workplace environments. Let's face it, in today's workplace, putting effort toward continuous growth and personal development sometimes doesn't seem feasible for those who wish to get things done and be rewarded with increasing levels of responsibility, leadership, and pay. Certainly the widespread use of tools such as 360-degree feedback assessments mays provide the insight and awareness needed as a basis for change, but what exactly constitutes change itself?
The truth is that anyone can claim to have changed. I have worked with more than 100 couples in counseling settings, and one of the most common occurrences I have observed is for the couple to come into the second session with either husband or wife (whomever is more desperate) proclaiming: “I've changed.” This may or may not be accurate. It is often what one wants to hear, but the proof is in the behavior. At the end of the day, real change is measured by whether or not we are able to make new choices and to make them consistently. This kind of change is at the heart of self-management.
Daniel was a rising star in his company. During his first six months, he quickly distinguished himself from many of his peers by becoming the number one sales rep in his region. His task-oriented, fast-paced, hardworking style did not go unnoticed, and within two years he was promoted to a supervisory position. As supervisor he managed people in the same way he managed tasks. His pacesetting style worked well with the high-performing, self-starting members of his team, but he became quickly irritated and impatient with his direct reports who worked at a slower pace. The more he pushed them, the more time they seemed to spend analyzing details, processing data, or building consensus, slowing things down even more. His impatience usually revealed itself in a demanding tone of voice—“I don't care what it takes. Just do it!”
A few employees felt so disrespected and intimidated by Daniel's managerial style that they went to Human Resources to discuss the situation. On several occasions Daniel was given feedback about his style, but rather than accepting the feedback, he often became defensive. Daniel was given a tremendous opportunity to develop his self-awareness through feedback and, from this, to make changes through self-management. Instead he made excuses. “That's just the way I am. It is how I am hard wired. You can't expect me to change who I am.” What Daniel was saying in effect was, “This is not what I choose. This is who I am.” In the end Daniel lost his job with the company.
Someone has wisely said: “You will never ever change what you do not believe you have chosen.” When people attribute their behaviors to disposition, to emotions, to uncontrollable urges and impulses, to external causes, or to external situations, they give up their power to manage those behaviors, and, in doing so, they avoid taking responsibility for them. Some people do not do the hard foundational work of self-awareness and therefore do not gain the insight and feedback necessary to make changes. Table 5-1 illustrates the relationship between self-awareness and self-management.
As the table illustrates, those who lack self-awareness are almost completely untrustworthy when it comes to making new choices and demonstrating the competencies of self-management. Many of us intuitively know not to trust people who lack self-awareness. We may not always speak about this distrust, but at some gut level, there is a realization that without self-awareness, people are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
Table 5-1. The Impact of Self-Awareness on Self-Management
| Assumes Responsibility for Self-Management | ||
| Degree of Self-Awareness | Yes (%) | No (%) |
| Strong | 49 | 51 |
| Poor | 4 | 96 |
| N = 427, p < .001 (Burckle and Boyatzis, 1999). | ||
Self-awareness is as fundamental to self-management as a clock is to time management. Indeed, there is a 96 percent likelihood that those who refuse to do the work of self-awareness will also be deficient in the area of self-management.
Even when people are self-aware, however, it does not always mean that they will make the kinds of adjustments that lead to personal growth and development. Only half of those who are self-aware actually take responsibility for the insight that awareness provides and make new choices around how they will manage their emotions and behaviors.
At times there is a tendency to confuse self-awareness with growth. Many people who are self-aware are knowledgeable about their problems, but they do not move toward a solution. They are willing to look at themselves in the mirror, but are unmoved by what they see, or lack the commitment to make the necessary adjustments. The path of least resistance is paved with good intentions. Self-awareness certainly does not equal change, but it is foundational to change. The goal is always to move from self-awareness: “here is what is going on” to self-management: “therefore this is what I need to do.”
SELF-MANAGEMENT AND YOUR EMOTIONS
Let's assume that we all struggle with one or more of the disruptive emotions outlined in chapter 4. We are all aware of the disruptive emotions inside of our bodies, and we know from past experience that these disruptive emotions have the potential to get the best of us in certain situations. Some of us will be especially vulnerable to anger, some to anxiety, some to guilt, some to feeling “down.” We all want to respond appropriately when the emotion is triggered, but to do this we have to manage the disruptive emotion or the emotion will manage us. One way to think about managing emotions is to consider how emotions, thoughts, and behaviors work together holistically in a person's body. The following story will help us to explain how this all works (see Figure 5-1).
Dagwood decides to take a class in emotional intelligence and asks himself the question, “How can I manage my anxiety so that I can begin to approach Mr. Dithers with more confidence?” (With respect to emotional intelligence, this really becomes two questions: How do I manage my anxiety? How do I generate the emotion of confidence?) Dagwood learns that most experts in the field of psychology consider themselves to be cognitive/behavioral in their approach to managing emotions. This means that Dagwood can learn how to manage his emotions by either managing his behaviors or managing his thoughts. Let's take a glimpse into Dag-wood's classroom and discover the power that our behaviors have in managing emotions.
Figure 5-1. Managing your emotions.
BLONDIE © KING FEATURES SYNDICATE.
BEHAVIORAL STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING YOUR EMOTIONS
A Glimpse into the Classroom: Behavior and Emotion
“Everybody stand up!” In moments 23 men and women stand up to participate in an experiment that is especially designed to connect with those participants who favor a kinesthetic, tactile learning style. “Pretend you are Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street.” Modeling the physiological behaviors of the woolly mammoth from Sesame Street, all the participants are now standing with shoulders drooped and arms dangling forward to mimic an elephant's trunk. With the mopiest of voices, each participant repeats out loud “I am soooo happy. You would not believe how happy I am. I can't wait until tomorrow.” The participants quickly realize that it is difficult to feel an emotion like happiness when their behavior is lethargic.
There are two behavioral rules at work here that will help us to understand the behavioral strategies for managing our emotions.
Rule #1: The brain does not want to feel an emotion that is inconsistent with the physiology of the body.
Rule #2: When you are feeling a disruptive emotion, ask yourself what emotion you want to feel and then behave consistently with that emotion.
Consider the following examples:
Problem: You feel lazy and want to feel energetic.
Behavioral Solution: Start exercising and eventually your feelings will catch up with the active behavior.
Problem: You feel anxious about initiating a conversation with your supervisor.
Behavioral Solution: The emotion you want to feel is confidence, so you ask yourself the question: “What does confidence look like (behaviorally)?”—Use these behaviors as you approach your supervisor—keep your head up, maintain eye contact, square your shoulders, wear professional attire, walk with a slight skip in your step, use a firm handshake and an assertive voice. The confidence will follow.
Problem: You feel angry and you are afraid that you will say the wrong thing if you do not get your anger under control.
Behavioral Solution: Do something that makes you feel good, like taking a walk around the lake.
Problem: You and your spouse feel love for each other, but you really want to rekindle some of the romantic feelings that you used to have for each other.
Behavioral Solution: Ask yourself the question: “What does romantic love look like (behaviorally)?” Start using those behaviors—write love poems, send flowers, call each other up to go out on a date, surprise each other, have romantic candle-lit dinners, and so on.
Problem: You are feeling down and dull and you want to feel happy.
Behavioral Solution: Happy people do happy things. What activities in your life make you feel happy? Start doing these activities and you will bring happy feelings into your life.
COGNITIVE STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING YOUR EMOTIONS
It is early Monday morning, and Susan is in her office thinking about the project she has just been assigned to lead and all of the related work that needs to be completed by the end of the week. With so much difficult and time-sensitive work to be accomplished, she begins to think about the challenge of delegating this work to her staff. “I'm really going to have to depend on Josephine and Harold,” she muses, considering her two best and most dependable team members. She relies heavily on these two and hopes she's not overworking them.
At 9:00 she meets briefly with each of them and delegates the expectations and responsibilities for the coming week. Both assure her that they will do everything they can to meet the suspense dates, and as the meeting ends, Susan feels confident and hopeful that the project will be successful.
Later in the morning, Harold runs into Peter by the coffee maker. They chit chat for a moment, and then Harold says, “Can you believe all of the work she is piling on top of me? That woman is just trying to make my life miserable!” Peter listens and empathizes with Harold's situation. Although Harold appreciates the chance to vent to a colleague, he returns to his work area still feeling frustrated and irritable.
Later that evening, Josephine meets her husband at a local restaurant for dinner. He asks her about her day, and she tells him about the project. “Can you believe all of the work that she is giving me?” she exclaims. “You know, I think she must really trust me and believe in me to give me so much responsibility. It's a good sign, don't you think?” Josephine is feeling confident and secure about her work performance.
There is very little difference between Josephine and Harold. Both are good workers, both are dependable, both have a very busy work week ahead of them, delegated to them by the same person. The only real difference between these two people is how they are thinking and feeling. Harold thinks, “She is trying to make my life miserable” and feels irritable. Josephine thinks, “She is showing me how much she trusts me” and feels confident. Josephine's response to her workload represents one of the most important truths about managing disruptive emotions: What you think about what happens to you is more important than what actually happens to you. In other words, what is important is not what is happening to you but what is happening in you.
THE ABCs OF LIFE
Dr. Albert Ellis is a cognitive-behavioral psychologist known throughout the world as the father of Rational Emotive Therapy. He introduced the world to the idea that all of our disruptive emotions can be effectively managed if we simply take the time to analyze our thoughts and use our rational brain to think more accurately and realistically about the circumstances that surround our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. His simple thesis was this:
Your feelings follow your beliefs. What you believe about your world determines how you feel.
Dr. Ellis's Rational Emotive model of understanding and managing disruptive emotions is called: The ABCs of Life. A refers to the activating events of life. These are the circumstances, events, and experiences that precipitate our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. C refers to our consequential emotions and behaviors. Our tendency in life is to blame our feelings and behaviors on activating events, without realizing that there is always something in between A and C—B, our beliefs about the activating event. The ABC model says that our feelings are determined by B and not by A. It is our beliefs about activating events that determine how we feel, not the events themselves.
We can apply the ABC model to the example above about Susan and her project task delegation.
A—Activating Event
Susan delegates work to Josephine and Harold.
B—Belief about Activating Event
There are actually many beliefs that Josephine or Harold could have:
1. My supervisor believes in me and thinks I am a good, hard worker.
2. My supervisor has it in for me and is trying to make my life miserable.
3. My supervisor knows that I am stressed out and doesn't care.
4. My supervisor doesn't understand my limits and is just trying to get all of the help she can.
5. My supervisor is ruining my life.
6. No, really, I'm just fine. It's no big deal that I have to work 80 hours this week.
C—Consequential Emotional Response
The emotional response completely varies depending on what is going on in the belief system.
This example shows how different ways of viewing the same event can lead to different emotional reactions. We can therefore manage our emotions by adding a D to our model. D refers to the idea that we can dispute our thinking and replace self-defeating, irrational beliefs with rational, logical beliefs.
SELF-DEFEATING BELIEFS
It requires a lot of effort to dispute the way you are thinking in every single situation. The cognitive approach is most effective when you realize that what you tell yourself in specific situations depends on the general beliefs you hold. To illustrate, let's have some fun with the authors of this book. Pretend that I hold to a general belief that says, “People should know what I am thinking and feeling without me having to tell them.” Now, suppose I feel angry because my co-author, Jeff, did not call me to wish me a happy birthday.
The activating event is:
A—Jeff did not wish me a happy birthday.
The belief in this situation is:
B—Jeff should have known better.
Jeff knows how important my birthday is to me.
Jeff should have called me.
Jeff should call me now and apologize.
The consequential emotions are:
C—Anger, disappointment, hurt, resentment, revenge, and so on.
Notice that what I tell myself in the situation is dependent on my general belief. If I had a different general belief such as: “It is not rational to expect people to be mind-readers. If I want people to understand me, then I need to let them know how I feel, and even then they have the freedom to ignore my feelings,” then I would tell myself something much different in the situation. When an activating event A triggers off a train of thought B, what we consciously think in the moment is both supported and determined by a set of general beliefs that we apply to the event. What this means is that the best way to manage your emotions cognitively is to examine and dispute your underlying beliefs to make sure they serve you well. Many of your general beliefs are rational and logical and do serve you well, but some of your beliefs may be rigid and inflexible, even irrational and self-defeating. The above example that “people should know what I am thinking and feeling without me telling them” is an example of a self-defeating belief. It is self-defeating because it is ontologically not true. If you believe something that is not true, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. It is just a matter of time before someone comes along and fails to understand you, and then you are going to be upset because of the belief.
Another example of a self-defeating belief is: “To be worthwhile, I must be successful at everything I do.” Because this belief is a generalization, it will apply to all of your performance-based activities, and since this belief is self-defeating, it will eventually lead to dysfunctional emotional and behavioral responses. At work you take on a project-management role and several mistakes later you are looking at a failed project. Because of your self-defeating belief you conclude that you are not worthwhile, and then you “act out” your conclusion. You may get depressed or anxious, you may get angry and start blaming people, or you may feel shame and avoid taking future risks. At best you get defensive, make some excuse, and try to avoid looking like the failure was your fault. You may save face in the situation, but all of this leaves the self-defeating belief untouched, and so it is there to trip you up whenever some future failure triggers it off. To be successful, you must challenge any self-defeating beliefs that you hold.
Table 5-2. 12 Self-Defeating Beliefs vs. 12 Rational Beliefs
EQuip Yourself
Manage Anger
Practice postponing your anger response for small increments of time—Eventually, you will be able to postpone indefinitely and choose your response.
Find the triggers—Identify the situations and circumstances that tend to trigger your anger response and manage those situations.
Mix pleasantness with anger—Just as oil doesn't mix with water, anger doesn't mix with feelings of pleasantness. This is a behavioral strategy. To manage your anger, do something that makes you feel good—like taking a walk around a lake.
Reframe your anger—Anger is often a signal to ask yourself the question: What is actually beneath my anger? The primary emotions that tend to drive anger are fear, deep concern, worry, guilt, and hurt. When you use your self-awareness to connect with your primary emotions, you are actually managing your anger by reframing it as one of these primary emotions. For example: instead of feeling angry at someone, you are feeling undervalued and misunderstood. These emotions will help you to handle the conflict-resolution dialogue more effectively, as we shall address in chapter 8.
Realign your expectations—Anger often occurs because we feel an injustice has taken place. Sometimes there are injustices that we need to get angry about, such as groups like MADD being angry at intoxicated drivers. But other injustices are really violations of rules that exist in our minds that are not necessarily universally accepted social, legal, or ethical principles. In other words, sometimes when people fall short of our expectations, we get angry as if an injustice has occurred, when actually our expectation is unrealistic given the differences that exist between people. The solution is to adjust your expectations and bring them into greater alignment with reality.
Choose your battles carefully—There are things in life that are worth spending your anger energy on, but you have to separate them from the things that are trivial. When you feel angry, your amygdala is not always drawing a clear distinction between a real injustice and a trivial offense. To help you make that distinction:
Take a step back, breathe, and ask yourself if the situation is worthy of a battle.
Remind yourself that you don't have enough anger energy to make everything a battle, so you are committed to choosing your battles very carefully.
Ask yourself if this situation is going to matter in 10 years. If your answer is no, then the situation is not worthy of your anger. Save it for something more important.
Manage Anxiety
Ask anxiety inventory questions—Anxiety is an emotion that will tend to narrow your field of perception by making it difficult for you to see what is going on and what your choices are. We often get paralyzed by anxiety because we can't come up with a good answer to a question like: “What do I do?” Instead, we can ask:
What is going on here?
What's the worst thing that could happen?
How likely is that?
Is it in or out of my control?
Is there anything I can do?
Recognize the irrationality of worry—Much of the time we spend worrying is unproductive, because worrying does not actually accomplish anything. It has been estimated that all but 10 percent of what we spend our energy worrying about is actually within our control. Focus your worry energy on the things that you can control that are actually important. Then you can move more quickly from worry to problem solving and use your time more efficiently.
Go ahead and worry, but with a purpose—When you are worried, you can't manage the feeling by telling yourself to just stop worrying. After all, you probably have a reason for being anxious. One way to manage this anxiety is to give yourself permission to be anxious, but give it clear boundaries:
Try to set worry times. Decide to spend 20 minutes worrying about an issue or a concern and create a list of what if? scenarios. What if this happens? What if that happens?
Next, honestly confront the possibility that these things could happen by turning worry into anticipation: If such and such happens…
Finally, turn anticipation into action: Then I will…
This particular strategy is designed to relieve your anxiety by helping you to see that even if what you fear does happen, you can handle it!
Resist using worry as a tool to manipulate others—Worry can be used as a way to get other people to do what you want them to do. Parents do this all the time with children. A child is expected not to climb a tree because the parent is worried about the potential for an injury. The child complies, not because of understanding the safety issues, but because the child does not want the parent to worry. In effect, the child is managing the parent's worry for the parent. The desired behavior in the child actually reinforces the worrying behavior of the parent. The parent is unwittingly teaching the child to be manipulated by emotion instead of teaching the child how to think about what is or isn't responsible behavior. If you recognize that worry can at times be used as a tool to manipulate others, then you can manage it by reminding yourself that it is wrong to use your emotions to manipulate people.
Carpe Diem!—See your present moments as times to live, rather than obsess about the future.
Manage Shame and Guilt
Be willing to face your feelings of guilt—Guilt is often an emotional signal that is telling you that your behaviors are not in alignment with your core values, that you have
actually done something wrong or irresponsible. Have you really done something wrong, or are you feeling guilty about establishing boundaries and setting limits (such as not watching the grandchildren because you have other plans)? If you have actually done something wrong and you feel guilty, then the best way to manage this kind of guilt is to apologize for the wrong you've committed and offer some suggestion to make the situation right.
Only take responsibility for your own guilt—If, however, you have not done anything wrong, then perhaps your guilt is a signal telling you that you need to establish better boundaries with people and not expect yourself to take on responsibility for something that someone else is responsible for. Guilt is the emotion of responsibility, and sometimes people can be overly responsible for other people. If you are taking on responsibility for someone else's choices, then your guilt signal will actually be overactive. You can manage this guilt by recognizing the importance of establishing healthy boundaries with people.
Understand the difference between guilt and shame— Many people feel condemned by guilt and live as if their past disqualifies them from having a hopeful future. Their guilt causes them to feel uniquely flawed, imperfect, and inadequate. This kind of guilt is more accurately called shame. Shame is one of the most neutralizing emotions that a person can experience. When people feel shame, they tend to avoid the challenges and opportunities that allow them to grow, learn, and develop into what they are capable of becoming.
Put guilt in perspective—The wake that is created by a boat riding across a lake provides a nice metaphor for understanding how to manage guilt. The wake does not drive the boat forward, it simply reveals where the boat has been. Similarly, your past does not determine who you are or where you are going; it simply describes where you have been. It is the past and does not drive the present.
Look at your guilt as a marker along the trail that is signaling you to pause, reflect, and learn what you need to learn to move forward with better judgment and better understanding.
Try not to let your guilt overwhelm you when you fail or make a mistake—Your guilt is simply a signal for you to learn. In Hollywood, a mistake is called a mis-take. The producer announces a do-over, re-shoots the scene, and then the mis-take becomes an out-take and is shown to the movie audience at the end of the film. These bloopers are sometimes the funniest scenes in the whole movie, with famous Hollywood actors laughing at themselves making mistakes. Learn to see your mistakes as mis-takes. They are learning opportunities. They are bloopers that you get to look back on and laugh about.
Reconsider your cognitive programming—Perhaps your guilt is not your own but is actually a composite portrait made up of the messages you received while growing up.
Forgive yourself—Accept the choices you have made in life, whether they feel good or bad, as where you were in that moment doing the best you could with the information and resources you had on hand.
Manage Feelings of Burnout and Depression
Listen to your feelings—If you are feeling lethargic, lacking energy, and uninterested in activities that normally energize you, your feelings are probably telling you that you need to change the way you are organizing the activities of your life:
Add an activity that you know will energize you.
Subtract an activity that you know is draining you.
Adjust the amount of time you are spending on activities that drain you.
Stick to the stress-management basics.
Increase your physical activity.
Eat well.
Get plenty of rest.
Take quiet times for yourself.
Be true to your core values.
Create small successes—If you are trying to achieve a long-term goal or are involved in a long project, create short-term goals to help you to experience a sense of accomplishment along the way.
Practice relational thinking—As discussed in chapter 3, the more you can relate the details of what you do to an idea that gives your life a sense of meaning and value, the more you will do your work with inspiration, enthusiasm, and energy.
Choose strategies based in behavior—Some of your best strategies for dealing with feelings of burnout and depression are behavioral:
Take a vacation.
Increase your fun factor.
Do activities that you know will bring fun, energy, and happiness into your life.
Reexamine your self-talk—Don't forget your ABCs.
Don't hesitate to seek professional help if you need it— There is a difference between feeling down or lethargic and experiencing clinical depression. If you are susceptible to prolonged periods (two weeks or more) of having a depressed mood most of the day and losing interest in activities that you normally enjoy, and no matter what you try you cannot seem to bring yourself out of your depressed mood, then you may be experiencing a clinical form of depression for which you need to seek out the services of a qualified medical professional such as a psychiatrist, or a qualified mental health professional such as a psychologist.