Self-control: How to take control of your time and life?

Chapter 8 Managing Your Emotions (1)
how to be positive right away
"Have you been feeling down lately?" I asked the trainee Youwan.Although his emotions are now lifeless and lifeless like a pile of carbon ash covered in ice and snow, I told him, "You are not alone in feeling this way, and managing emotions is a major problem for everyone."

During the week after Thanksgiving, Youwan was in a bad mood, couldn't cheer up, and couldn't find a job status at all.Most people are in this state after a vacation, they take a few days off, and when they get back to the company, they want to continue the vacation.

“December was chaotic,” he said, “full of holiday parties, cookies, brandy, and eggnog.” Yovan and his colleagues had a hard time coping with the reality of having to attend parties complete the work at the same time, so that it can reach a state of balance.

Clearly, they struggle to recover and become discouraged and unmotivated, even downright depressed, between vacations, pleasure, and work.Everyone goes through something like this, and you probably do too: "It's cruel to me not to be able to take a month off, it's unfortunate!"

As you can imagine, lack of motivation is caused by negative emotions, which is not good for our life and career.Aside from the holidays—which are only a small factor in mood swings—how can you energize yourself in a short period of time when you're feeling down?
Do less. "Doing Less" is the first approach we come up with in our Emotions class.You should, even though it's hard to do (we're always busy with multiple issues juggling every minute and every second).If you do too many things, you will naturally pay less for each one.When you can't put your whole heart into something, you feel unmotivated.

Doing less can reduce your stress.This allows you to focus on a few things that really excite you.Only work that excites oneself can restore positive emotions and get rid of emotional troubles such as "boredom", "pain" and "tiredness".

For example, if you are a writer who writes almost every day, it is necessary to lighten your writing schedule: "I can't write three works at the same time, it will lead to a decrease in efficiency, and writing at the same time is a painful thing. I Just create one work at a time.”

While you're trying to develop your exercise routine, keep your health plan simple: Do a few exercises and don't do too many at once.

Don't rest for too long.Rest is good, of course, as Yuwan experienced: he longed for a longer vacation, which only added to his burnout and made him not want to go back to normal work.So taking a break once in a while is fine, but taking too long a break can break the habits you already have and make you lose interest in your work.

Remember why.When both of the above efforts fail, you may feel hopeless, but the world will not end.

You can use your recovery magic trick by thinking back to why you started doing these things in the first place. "Why should I become a designer?"

"Why should I become an entrepreneur?" "Why should I lose weight?" "Why should I achieve this goal?"

Revisit your plans and original intentions and think about why you started all this: "How excited and motivated I was! Does my original reason sound real now?" If you have lost interest in the original vision and purpose , can no longer cheer up, maybe it's time for you to go and try something else.If your answer is yes, I think you will be able to find the energy to keep going again, relying on the strong motivation to achieve this goal, and sweep away the current negativity.

emotional contagion
All bad emotions are super contagious.I saw a woman crying in a mall after she lost her purse, which contained all her belongings (she put all her bank cards in it).Originally, this matter had nothing to do with the people around her. She just sat at the elevator and wiped her tears. After 10 minutes, the people around her were sad with her, and several housewives also thought of their own. Sad thing, shed tears.

When you encounter troublesome things, if you can't control your emotions, these unpleasant "viruses" will quickly spread and pass on to others.Just as a smile is contagious and brings joy to people, so does emotional garbage, which can contaminate a large space.In this issue, each of us is a victim, but also a potential "murderer".

My course researchers have found experimentally that when people see someone blaming (even unfairly blaming) someone else, they are more likely to learn the behavior.Many people often blame others when they do something wrong. His purpose is to protect their self-esteem.When he started this behavior of venting anger, he didn't realize that the people around him were also infected by him, so more people learned this way of venting anger, and bad emotions were spread like this.

In the process of emotional contagion, there are four factors at work.

The more influential the communicator is, the more likely people are to subconsciously mimic their emotions.The president's tears in front of the TV will move many viewers in front of the TV.This is because, as a person with great influence, he has a strong sense of being recognized, has established a close relationship with the outside world, and is closely related to the interests of many people.Similarly, there are film and television stars, public intellectuals and other well-known figures.On a smaller scale, the emotions of company leaders and department managers are also easily imitated by employees.

The greater the intensity of external stimuli, the more likely it is to cause "emotional contagion".The "tipping point" of emotional contagion depends on the intensity of external stimuli.For example, for the same situation, some people with weak resistance will first have an emotional reaction, while others with high resistance will not.If someone has a strong reaction first, it is equivalent to increasing the intensity of the stimulus, and people with relatively high resistance will also respond emotionally.Just like watching a horror movie, if the timid child is scared to cry first, the bold child who would not cry may follow suit.

Emotional contagion has the characteristics of "empathy".Cohesive groups often use this "empathy" to fight against external damage together, so that everyone in the group feels a sense of belonging and security.Many good managers like to pour their emotions into their team members and then bring them together.A more typical example is the speeches of politicians during the war era. During World War II, Britain faced German air raids. Churchill successfully used the emotional appeal of his speeches to unite the whole of Britain to resist the German invasion.

People who lack rational thinking, are susceptible to hints, and have relatively simple knowledge and experience are easily influenced by other people's emotions.

In this regard, the elderly and children are obvious groups. They are easily influenced by others and lack the ability to distinguish.

Today, the most common and most feared contagious emotional viruses are stress and anxiety.They can quickly contaminate an entire team like a cold virus.People are like a sponge, constantly absorbing the emotional contagion of those around them.When you feel the negative emotional influence of others, you will become negative, and your body language will also change, such as shrugging your shoulders and frowning when speaking, inexplicably feeling that you are not interested in work, and want to cry a lot.

Therefore, avoiding contact with people who are in a bad mood can help to maintain a happy heart (this is sometimes even more important than trying to maintain your own emotional stability).

Stay away from the emotional battlefield as soon as possible. When others are angry, it is the best policy to get yourself out of the battlefield, and then gain space and time to calm down (and give the other party a chance to adjust).This applies not only to negative emotional battlefields, but also to overly positive emotional spaces. When encountering emotional battlefields, we temporarily avoid them and don't become a member of blind obedience.

Mr. Wang from Guangzhou said: "Last year I almost became a member of an MLM organization, but I managed to control myself and was not fooled. They held meetings in the room and brainwashed members with extremely provocative language. I fled decisively." otherwise I would have been captured by the crazy atmosphere."

We should not only guard against negative emotions, but also be vigilant against overly positive emotions, so as not to disrupt the balance of the emotional control system in the body and push ourselves to extremes.

10 seconds of silence
10 seconds may seem insignificant in life, but it is very valuable to pause your brain for 10 seconds before getting angry.Jefferson, the third president of the United States, once said: "Count to 10 first, and then speak. If you are still angry, then count to 100." Then, the nerve in the brain that is tense by anger will relax , you will be glad that you didn't immediately rush to fight to the death with the guy who irritated you.

Distraction Learn to divert your (or others') attention at the right moment, and dispel the bad emotions that are about to burst out invisible.For example, when you encounter bad luck, the more you think about it, the more angry you will be, and you can't wait to throw everything in the room downstairs.At this time, I suggest that you immediately turn on the TV, listen to music or sing, or take a shower (this is a better way), and do some relaxing things, so that your brain will forget what happened just now.When you think about it again, you will find that you made all the fuss.

Emotions Have Intelligence: It's Testing You
Salovey, a professor of psychology at Yale University, said: "Our emotions also have intelligence. It refers to the ability of individuals to monitor their own and other people's emotions and emotions, and to recognize and use this information to guide their own thoughts and behaviors." In other words In other words, our emotion itself is a living "living body", which can recognize and understand the emotional state of ourselves and others, and use this information to solve problems and regulate our own behavior.In a sense, it is related to the ability to understand, control and utilize emotions.If we use another more technical term to summarize it, it is EI - Emotional Intelligence.

(End of this chapter)