Change Catalyst with Shanna Mann: Strategy & Support for Sane Self-Employment

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Your Emotions Have Something to Tell You

  1. Your Emotions Have Something to Tell You
  2. My Art Is My Business– And Now Both Are Stuck!
  3. Advice for First-Time Entrepreneurs
  4. Q&A: How Much is Too Much for Professional Development?
  5. Advice for People ‘Living the Dream’
  6. How Do I Make Good Decisions about Investing In My Business?
  7. The Non-Skeevy Way For Introverts To Make “Friends” Online
  8. “How do I get to know people without feeling competitive?”
  9. “I need to charge more. Is this a valid reason to raise my prices?”
  10. Q&A: The Fundamentals of Growing Your List
  11. Where Do I Spend Money on My Microbiz Until It’s Successful?
  12. Q&A: How Do I Know When I’m Making Enough Money To Hire Help?
  13. Q&A: When Will It All Hang Together?
  14. 3 Times When You Don’t Have To Answer The Four Questions (and 1 Where You Do)
  15. Help! A Client Called My Bluff! What Do I Do Now?

I got an email from a client voicing his disappointment in his progress, and also in his inability to make efficient use of his time. Specifically, he was disappointed in his “inability to control his emotions.”

I thought my response might strike a chord with others as well.

I think you’re forgetting to take a couple of factors into account. The first is that no one can be productive all day every day. The goose and the golden eggs, right? Learn to recognize the symptoms of tiredness and overwhelm, and accept them. Yeah, yeah, push your limits, blah, blah, blah. That’s only a short term solution, one that ends in burn out. Sustainable progress is about discipline, and being attentive to the point of diminished returns. Once you get there, turn off your brain. It takes more discipline and control to do that than not, let me tell you.

Second, emotions are not there to be controlled. They’re sources of information to be interpreted. It’s only by disciplined use of the messages your emotions have that you can make the best decisions.

your-emotions-have-something-to-tell-you

Look at it this way. If you were a general in the Roman army, and a messenger came into your tent to tell you that the second division had broken formation and was about to flee, what would you do?

Are you going to:

  1. kill the messenger for informing you that a division of your men are failing you?
  2. go out and shout at them? (er, sorry “rally the troops”)
  3. dispatch a different unit to help them so that at least the ones that haven’t fled have a formation to join?

Obviously, option one is just dumb. And yet, that’s essentially what you do when you ignore your emotions.

Option two, browbeating yourself into doing what you think you ought is not a very good plan, because of how humans react under stress. Please note, you are a human.

Option three, send help is the only effective response you have. If your subconscious is sending signals that point to trouble, whether it’s fear, frustration, boredom, anxiety, or anger, ignoring or bullying it in the name of maintaining control won’t work.

You have to figure out the reasoning behind the emotion. What’s triggering it? What can you do to correct the trigger. If you’re bored, why? Would racing the clock to get down be enough to mitigate that? If not, what would?

I know it’s a bit of a leap to go from buttoning down your emotional responses to listening to them, so don’t expect a change overnight. But ignoring them, while it sounds like such a good, sane, effective, reasonable choice on the surface, is fraught with all kinds of problems. Don’t shoot the messenger.

[ssbp]