Self-Management: How to Take Control of Your Emotions

Welcome to part 3 in our 5-part blog post series on emotional intelligence.

In the first post, we discussed emotional intelligence, why it’s important, and we then introduced the 4 skills that comprise emotional intelligence.

The second post saw us discuss the first skill, self-awareness, in-depth and discussed some strategies for improving self-awareness.

Today, we will discuss the second skill of emotional intelligence, self-management. We will then review some strategies that we can use to improve self-management in our lives.

We will also continue our example of how the late, great Steve Jobs used emotional intelligence to deal with a very public attack. If you missed the first post where we introduced emotional intelligence or the second post on self-awareness you may want to go back and check them out before reading this one.

Before we get to those self-management strategies, let’s first discuss the concept of self-management in a bit more detail.

Self-Management – The Second Skill of Emotional Intelligence

As we said in the previous post, the 4 skills of emotional intelligence build upon each other with self-management being the logical next step after self-awareness. The idea is to use the awareness of your emotions to then consciously choose what you will or will not do. It is the ability to take control of your emotions to act with honesty and integrity in consistent ways.

The reason that self-management builds upon self-awareness is that you can only act on an emotion if you are aware it exists.

Being able to recognize and then think about your emotions puts you in control of how you respond to them. What this does is allow you to take charge of difficult situations and then react positively and proactively rather than being hijacked by your emotions.

We will now review some of the self-management strategies that Bradberry and Greaves discuss in their great book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0.  The key is to find the strategy or strategies that work for you, practice them until they become habits and help you respond more effectively to your emotions.

Strategies to Improve Self-Management

(1)  Take Deep Breaths

Simply taking deep breaths will flood your brain with oxygen which will make you calmer and help clear your head. Besides getting your rational brain engaged instantly, doing breathing exercises or deep breaths helps shift your focus away from the uncomfortable thoughts you were having,

(2)  Distinguish Emotion from Reason

There are many times when our emotional and rational brains get caught in a tug of war. When this happens, Bradberry and Greaves suggest simply taking a sheet of paper, putting a line down the middle, then listing what your emotions are telling you to do on one side, and what your reason is telling you to do on the other. Then you can sit back, look at both sides and decide which way you want to go.

(3)  Share Your Goals

By simply sharing our goals with others it is sometimes enough to get us to act due to it creating an incredible sense of accountability. On the other hand, I have seen others criticize this strategy as they say announcing your goal to others can give you a sense that you have already accomplished it. My take? If you think it will work for you then give it a go.

(4)  Count to 10!

This is one we probably all learned in kindergarten, I know I did! When you are angry, simply stop, breathe, and slowly count to 10. This will help relax you and stop you long enough, so you don’t flip out or take rash action. It can help you maintain your composure and get a realistic perspective of what’s going on.

(5)  Just Sleep on It!

Another tried and true strategy! This one helps gives you even more time to digest whatever is going on so you can respond in a controlled manner. So, whether it is the next day, next week, or next month, give yourself some time to get more clarity, and a better perspective before reacting.

(6)  Talk to a Friend

More specifically talk to someone who is good at self-management. There are those who are naturals at self-management and simply picking their brain or observing them can help you learn from them.

(7)  Say Cheese and Laugh!

As we said in a previous post, the simple act of smiling will send signals to your brain that you are feeling happy. So, if you are stuck in a negative situation or a negative thought, try forcing yourself to smile, watch something funny on YouTube, or even read something you find funny to change your state.

(8)  Take Time to Think

Warren Buffett spends most of his day doing it and it is a great strategy to ensure that your decisions and actions aren’t muddled by your emotions. Simply taking 15 minutes a day to sit and think about the big picture can have enormous benefits.

(9)  Talk to Yourself Better

Researchers estimate that up to 75% of our thoughts are negative! So, unless we erase that programming or replace it with something else, it will affect us forever. However, that does not have to happen!  Instead, we can change our old programming and replace it with new programming via positive self-talk – which will help rewire our brains.

(10)  Use Visualization

A great way to make new skills habitual is via visualization. The best time to do it is at night and all you need to do is visualize yourself handling whatever situation it is you want to handle better in the way you want to handle it. By utilizing visualization, you can help form the neural pathways that make your new skills a habit.

(11) Get Better Sleep

Getting better sleep impacts so much of your life and will help your mind become more alert, focused and balanced. Check out our recent post for some tips to improve your sleep hygiene.

(12) Get Your Body Language in Check

If you cannot control your body language, you will not be able to control your emotions. Your mind controls your body and your body controls your mind. By being aware of and modifying your body language often times you will be able to change your state and thus your emotions and feelings.

(13)  Speak to Someone Who is Impartial

When something happens to us, often it is way too easy to get caught up in a specific train of thought. The idea is to speak and bounce ideas off someone who is not emotionally invested in the situation, and is good at self-management, to give us an outside perspective and see the big picture.

(14) Take Time for Exercise

Beyond the obvious physical benefits, exercise is great for the mind as it gives your brain a break to recharge. Other activities with similar benefits are yoga, getting a massage or just going for a walk.

(15) Control the Controllables

Realize that sometimes you just can’t control everything. The best you can do is to try and anticipate what may happen and think through how you would respond. Control what you can control and then anticipate and plan for what may happen.

How Steve Jobs Used Self-Management Dealing with a Public Attack

We left our story in the previous blog post at the point where Steve Jobs was publicly attacked by someone in the audience at an Apple Developer Conference after returning to the company after over a decade away.

How did he respond?

Well, lo and behold, ol’ Steve used some of the very self-management tactics we discussed above.

The first thing he did was…he paused for about 10 seconds! Whether he actually counted to 10 and took some deep breaths we will never know, but he did take a nice, long pause. It allowed him to maintain his composure and get a realistic perspective of what was going on before responding.

He then took a sip of water and said,

“You know,” he began… “You can please some of the people some of the time, but … “

He smiled when saying this, which as we suggested above likely helped change his state to a more positive one as well as adding a little levity to the situation to cut the tension.

Then he took another long pause, no doubt to gather his thoughts a bit more and plan what he was going to say.

As you can see in the story so far, he has done an incredible job of using the first 2 skills of emotional intelligence: self-awareness and self-management.

What did he say in response to the guy’s harsh question? You will have to wait for tomorrow’s blog post to see how he does just a masterful a job of displaying social awareness.

Until then, use these self-management strategies to improve your emotional intelligence and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

Use It or Lose It

Some of the self-management strategies we discussed to improve your emotional intelligence include:

(1)  Take deep breaths
(2)  Distinguish emotion from reason
(3)  Share your goals
(4)  Count to 10!
(5)  Just sleep on it
(6)  Talk to a friend
(7)  Say cheese and laugh!
(8)  Take time to think
(9)  Talk to yourself better
(10)  Use visualization
(11)  Get better sleep
(12)  Get your body language in check
(13)  Speak to someone who is impartial
(14)  Take time for exercise
(15)  Control the controllables

When to Use It:

Use these strategies when you want to improve the self-management part of your emotional intelligence.

What Do You Think?

Have you used any of the self-management strategies we discussed above? Do you have any other self-management strategies that you use? Please discuss in the comments below!

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References

1 Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York: Bantam Books.

2 Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA: TalentSmart.

3 Bradberry, Travis. (2005). The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book: Everything You Need to Know to Put Your EQ to Work. New York: Simon & Schuster.