LO1. Manage One’s Emotion

Information Sheet 1.1: Self-Management Strategies That Assist In Regulating Behavior and Achieving Personal and Learning Goals

What is Self-Management?

Self-management means taking responsibility for your actions and doing things as well as you can. It shows you can organize yourself and offer your ideas to any project. It’s about being the boss of YOU, not the boss of a team or company!

Self-managed people are self-disciplined. Those with high levels of self-management skills systematically plan their approach to goals, employ the right tool for the job, identify blocks to their performance, and modify their approach and practices. They are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and possess a broad range of context-independent process tools (generic skills, practices, optimally effective and efficient work routines) from which they select the most appropriate.

In his book How to Be a Star at Work, Robert Kelley highlights the following critical elements of Self-Management:

  • Committing to lifelong learning in support of both the organization’s goals and your own goals
  • Learning how to make certain that your projects add value to the organization
  • Developing your productivity skills to manage both your time and your commitments
  • Building broad personal networks that allow you to tap expertise in and out of the organization for complex problems
  • Being willing to embrace change and rethink both organizational structures and work definitions as new opportunities arise

Kelley emphasizes that star employees are intrinsically managing both their work and their career. By providing high value to the organization, stars get more opportunities to select which projects they work on and are instinctively building new skills to further their career prospects.

Self-Management Skills

The ability to self-manage allows one to maximize productivity, improve workplace performance, and efficiently achieve professional goals. According to the Indeed career blog, Self-management skills focus on personal responsibility in the following areas:

  1. Organization: Being well organized, allows one to be able to plan, prioritize, and execute important activities, helping you to self-manage your essential workplace responsibilities.
  2. Goal setting: Goal setting in the workplace helps you to decide what’s important and to create an action plan that will help you achieve goals that align with those values. This skill is necessary to maintain productivity in the workplace because it enables you to manage your time and actions.
  3. Time management: Strong time management skills allow you to prioritize tasks, avoid distractions, and maintain focus. Effective time management in the workplace helps with setting and meeting deadlines, working on one thing at a time, and delegating responsibilities appropriately. Managing one’s time is an essential part of self-management.
  4. Self-motivation: Self-motivation is the ability to take initiative and finish tasks you know should be completed. When you’re self-motivated, you anticipate and plan for potential tasks needed to achieve more significant assignments or to solve ongoing issues. You’re driven by your desire to succeed and not by outside factors, which makes you more productive in the workplace. Self-motivation is the side of self-management that ensures forward progress with your projects and activities.
  5. Stress management: Proactively managing workplace stressors can help you remain calm on the job. Handling stress before it becomes an issue allows you to focus on your goals and make steady progress forward. Managing stress helps you self-manage your emotions and maintain a professional demeanor in the workplace.
  6. Accountability: Accountability is the act of taking personal ownership of your thoughts and actions. When you maintain responsibility, you’re better equipped to evaluate your work and determine the best way to proceed.

Robert Kelley also highlights the following as core skills of Self-management:

  • (1) Learning to manage your commitments and time;
  • (2) Cultivating the motivation and capability to learn new things on your own in support of your work;
  • (3) Building and nurturing your network. With those three skills, you will be successful, though they may not make you a star.

Building self-management skills at work will help you:

  • Turn up on time to important meetings and bring anything you might need (that counts for job interviews too!)
  • Take pride in your work and get recognized as someone who tries and cares
  • Do your tasks better because you prepare in advance when you need to
  • Seek out opportunities for work experience, training, and more.

Information Sheet 1.2: Enablers and Barriers in Achieving Personal and Career Goals

You have dreams for your life, yet it can sometimes feel impossible to make them real. You might know what to do and even how to do it, but taking action requires courage — the ability to withstand fear, humiliation, and discomfort.

1. Comparing yourself to others

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of comparison. Look around and there’s probably someone already doing what you want to do. By comparing yourself to where they are and think how in the world you can compete with that will drag you down and reinforce a mentality of scarcity and fear, e.g., thinking you’re not good enough.

Do this instead:

  • Recognize that no one has your exact style, experiences, and knowledge, which has led you to the path you’re on. There’s no one in this world who can be you better than you.
  • Have a clear vision and understand why that’s important. Copying others and their journey will only cause you to feel inauthentic if it’s not meaningful to you.
  • Focus on developing yourself. You’re a work in progress – not a static entity – and are evolving into the person you want to be.
  • Compare yourself to a previous version of you, and celebrate all the progress you’ve made since then. We often look at how far we need to go that we lose sight of all we’ve done to get where we are today.

2. Perfectionism

Having very high standards and expectations for yourself and situations can sometimes create stagnancy and dissatisfaction. These sorts of things don’t propel you forward but instead, often send you soaring backwards. They can keep you from trying unless things feel just right, and this can leave you waiting indefinitely. They can also discount progress and cause discouragement.

Do this instead:

  • Realize that most decisions are reversible — you can change your mind later.
  • Take small steps and adjust as necessary to get to the results you want. You’ll get clear by adopting a scientist’s mindset and running experiments to see what works and improve on that.

3. Care about what others think

The need for approval and avoidance of rejection has been ingrained in us since childhood. However, tying your worth to what other people think sets you up for disappointment by forgoing what matters most to you and doing things you believe will make them happy.

When you let go of the need to please, you’re free to be yourself. Otherwise, you’re only trying to get people to like you by pretending to be someone else.

Do this instead:

  • Know that rejection is merely another person’s opinion. It informs you of the other person’s preference but doesn’t say anything about you as a person. There’s no need to make it personal.
  • Ask yourself what’s more important to you than the approval of other people and make that your priority. Is it expressing yourself fully? Or maybe making meaningful contributions to the world? Decide what matters most to you, and act accordingly.

4. Fear of failure

Fear is a protection mechanism with the purpose of keeping you safe and out of danger. It scans the environment for what can go wrong and works hard to prevent that from happening. The problem with this approach is that fear identifies the most catastrophic outcome even when you’re going after your dreams and tries to stop you.

Do this instead:

  • Don’t take fear at face value. Become curious and examine the facts objectively. There’s no denying that the worst case scenario is a possibility, but how likely is it as an outcome? If it does happen, can you recover? How long will you take to recover? What can you do to minimize the impact? If you succeed, then how does that affect your life?
  • See failures as lessons that will only allow you to get better if you learn from your mistakes.
  • Associate the discomfort you feel with growth instead of fear. If you’re moving in the direction of your dreams, this only means you’re growing into your potential.

5. Impatience

Our culture craves immediate gratification. However, a vision takes time. Focusing on all that needs to be done can feel crippling and cause you to give up even before you start. How are you ever going to make it to the end? How will you gain the confidence to succeed?

The answer: one step at a time.

Do this instead:

  • Focus on the next small step that will move you closer to your vision. It’s the process that allows you to achieve your goals. The reward is in the journey, not the outcome.
  • Recognize that confidence comes from competence, not the other way around. It’s only by doing the work that you’ll be inspired to be better and keep going.

Information Sheet 1.3: Techniques in Handling Negative Emotions and Unpleasant Situation in the Workplace Such As Frustration, Anger, Worry, Anxiety, Etc.

Negative emotions are unpleasant and disruptive emotional reactions. Examples of negative emotions include sadness, fear, anger, or jealousy. These feelings aren’t just unpleasant; they also make it hard to function in your normal daily life, and they interfere with your ability to accomplish goals.

Types of Negative Emotions

There are a number of different feelings that are often identified as negative emotions. While such feelings are often a normal reaction to certain experiences or events, they tend to be distressing and unpleasant. Some common types of negative emotions include:

  • Anger
  • Anxiety or fear
  • Apathy
  • Contempt, hate, or disgust
  • Jealousy
  • Insecurity
  • Regret or guilt
  • Sadness, grief, or loneliness
  • Shame

Causes

Negative emotions can stem from a wide variety of sources. Sometimes they are the result of specific experiences or events. For example, you might feel upset that your favorite team didn’t win a game or angry that your partner was late for a scheduled date.

Negative emotions can also arise from:

  • Relationship conflict: Problems that arise from interpersonal relationships are a common cause of negative emotions. Such challenges can arise in relationships with friends, family, co-workers, or romantic partners.
  • Unmet needs: When your needs are not being fulfilled—whether these needs are physical, emotional, social, psychological, or spiritual in nature—it is normal to experience sadness, anger, loneliness, envy, and other distressing emotions.
  • Poor coping skills: Everyday stress can lead to a wide variety of upsetting feelings if you don’t have the coping skills to manage it. Poor coping skills often end up making the problem worse or introducing new problems to the situation.

How to Cope With Negative Emotions

Fortunately, there are more productive ways to deal with difficult emotions. These strategies can help you cope while also improving your ability to regulate your emotions.

1. Understand Your Emotions

Look within and pinpoint the situations creating stress and negative emotions in your life. Looking at the source of the feeling and your reaction can provide valuable information.

Negative emotions can come from a triggering event, such as an overwhelming workload. Your thoughts surrounding an event also play a role. The way that you interpret what happened can alter how you experience the event and whether or not it causes stress.

2. Change What You Can

Once you better understand your emotions and what is causing them, you can start taking steps to address the problem. Minimizing or eliminating some of your stress triggers may make you feel negative emotions less frequently.

Some ways that you might accomplish this include

  • Cutting down on job stress, often by delegating tasks, developing boundaries, and seeking support
  • Learning the practices of assertive communication to manage relationship conflicts
  • Changing negative thought patterns through a process known as cognitive restructuring

Not every source of stress can be changed or eliminated. It is essential to avoid ruminating about what you can’t change and focus on what’s within your control.

3. Find an Outlet

Making changes in your life can cut down on negative emotions, but it won’t eliminate your stress triggers. As you make changes in your life to bring about less frustration, you will also need to find healthful outlets for dealing with these emotions.

  • Regular exercise can provide an emotional lift and an outlet for negative emotions.
  • Meditation can help you find some inner space to work with so your emotions don’t feel overwhelming.
  • Finding opportunities for having fun and getting more laughter in your life can also change your perspective and relieve stress.

Remember that everyone’s needs and abilities are different. The key is often to try a few other methods to find what works for you and your situation. Once you have found techniques that are right for you, you’ll feel less overwhelmed when negative emotions arise.

4. Accept Your Emotions

Learning to accept negative emotions is also an effective way of managing these difficult feelings. Acceptance means acknowledging that we are feeling afraid, angry, sad, or frustrated. Instead of trying to avoid or suppress these feelings, you allow them to exist without dwelling on them.

Negative emotions are normal and even expected. The goal isn’t to repress these feelings but to find healthier ways of regulating them. Building these coping skills can lead to greater emotional resilience and well-being.