Emotional Regulation

Emotions, one of the most natural attributes of human beings. We feel it every day on a diverse scale of variety and intensity.

But have you ever wondered why do we feel emotions?

What role do they play?

Emotions are necessary to generate the required behaviour in a situation.

For example,

Let’s say that you are walking down the street with your friend. A cyclist is coming from the opposite direction and he is about to run into your friend.

A sudden emotion of fear will jerk your hand to pull your friend closer and out of the cyclist’s way.

Emotions also help us to communicate with others and ourselves.

This is one of reason why we say that laughter is contagious. Without using any words you communicate your joy with people around you.

Just through emotions of joy.

Now, there are times when these emotions get the worst of you. The time when a situation makes you angry but you cannot afford being angry.

For example, your company has missed a shipment because of an error on your side.

The immediate emotion is of anger, but if you start getting angry and throwing things around you might lose the next shipment due in 20 minutes. 

So, how do you regulate your emotions?

How do you control your emotions, rather than letting the emotions control you?

The answer to this is Emotional Regulation

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The world renowned psychologist, James Gross Ph.D. defines emotional regulation as follows, ‘the processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express their emotions’.

This can be done in a couple of simple steps, at institutes like Happy Brain Coach. The experts will help you to

     a.)  Find your emotions

     For example, let’s say a person who is in a leading position in a company has experienced a personal loss. It has also started affecting his work and incurred some loses in the company. This is a complex situation during which the person cannot pinpoint the emotions that he is feeling. Hence it first important to help the person to find the emotions and then help him regulate it with the next step.

     b.)   Help you regulate it with exercises. One of which is the mindful exercise.

Mindfulness is the ability to know what's happening in your head at all times. Once you are aware of it, you can take charge and tell your brain what to think. The easiest way to do it is the 5 senses loop technique.

Emotional regulation is one of the most powerful traits of highly successful people. With the right guidance from the right experts you can regulate your emotions and channel them into positive results quicker than you think.

How To Think Like A Leader

If we ask you, what do you do for a living? We bet you will have an answer to it.

You may be working in a marketing firm, a factory, a shop, an institute or a hotel.

If we ask you, how you do it? With experience you will have an answer for it too.

In a marketing firm, you may be analysing the market, studying the consumer behaviour and based on it chart out a marketing plan.

But,

what if we ask you, why do you do it? Why do you work in that firm, why do you own that business or why do you teach in that institute?

An answer to this can be difficult but it’s necessary for your success.  In an ordinary man’s life this question may or may not stand before him.

But when you are in a position to lead, you have to know the why part of your job. To become a leader it is imperative.

Consider that you are a manager in a chips producing factory. You call a meeting. In the meeting you tell the employees that you want to increase the production rate. This will require them to follow your plan and work hard.

 Now, the employees will follow your plan because it’s their job. The production rate will increase.

 But there is a high chance that the result won’t be satisfactory. You will then increase the man hours which will agitate the employees and the production rate will drop.

What went wrong? You told them what to do and also how to do it. Still the production rate didn’t increase.

Now,

What if, you start your meeting by sharing the why part of the job. What if you say that, ‘we believe that a thing as small as chips can bring a smile to our customers face. We are able to do it on the basis of our technology and quality. What we need to do now is to reach out to more people. Spread more smiles.’

This time when the people leave the meeting hall they have a purpose in their life, they believe in what you believe. Now they won’t be working for their salaries but to put smiles on more faces.

When this happens the people will work with their sweat and blood.

The policy is the what part of the job. It appeals to the analytical brain. The implementation of the policies is the how part of the job. It appeals to the reasoning brain.  But the reason behind the policies is the why part of the job. It appeals to the emotional brain. When you touch your employees’ emotions that’s when the change happens.

The emotional brain is the most ancient part of the brain. This is where the decision comes from, though we might think that it comes from the analytical brain. If the person is not touched emotionally, he won’t listen to what you have to say no matter how many reasons you give him to listen. This is how great leaders have been able to accomplish great success.

But no great thing in life, comes easy. You need to focus on your objectives, and keep your why clear. One of the best way to do this is the 5 senses loop technique. 

Five Senses Loop Technique

Are you a creative person?

We believe that every person whose mind is capable of generating innovative ideas is a creative person.

So, how many ideas do you get in a day?

On a good day we know that your mind is flooded with tons of ideas.

But what about the bad days, the days when you can’t think of anything; when your mind is distracted over everything around you. It becomes more frustrating when you are close to a deadline.

So how do you tackle it?

Here’s how….

Lack of focus is not a permanent state. You can change it whenever you want.

It is natural to lose focus when you have to juggle between many things every day. All you need to do is train your mind.

You already do it without your knowledge. How? Remember the time when you wanted to buy a car? What did you do? You researched extensively about it for a couple of days. What happened after that? Every time you left the house you saw that car. You saw it on your way to work, in the office premises and even in movies.

How did it happen?

When you researched about the car you trained your mind to focus on the car. In the field of psychology this phenomenon is called ‘The Gatekeeper Effect’. You set a gatekeeper in your mind to let only important things (in this case a car) in and keep away the distractions. Hence, your brain became receptive to that car.

Sounds fair?

So how do you use it to get focus on the things that you want to achieve?

How do you intentionally set a gatekeeper?

Well, programming your mind may sound very hard to you but it’s easy. You start with a deep breath. You acknowledge your surrounding through your senses. You offer your gratitude towards your senses. Then you look inside you and thank your qualities. Then you think of the people whom you love and thank them.

This is how you build your way inside until you reach your core. Once you are there you think of the goals that you want to achieve.

Then you consider that your goals are achieved. You feel the happy to have achieved your goals. This is how you set a gatekeeper.  

Wasn’t it simple? It’s also quick. You can program your brain in just 5 simple steps which takes around 7-8 minutes.

Once you do it; you will be an entirely different person from what you were before.