Control Yourself

Self-awareness is critical to your success at work, but it’s only the beginning. You must move beyond self-awareness to self-regulation so you can develop stronger relationships and make better decisions under pressure. Being self-aware means you understand what emotions you’re experiencing and why in the moment. In this first article of a two-parter, let’s think about how to recognize your emotions, what triggers them, and how they affect your decision making.

Recognize Your Emotions

Do you feel your patience evaporate when someone schedules yet another meeting at 4:30 p.m.? Or maybe your stress spikes when you’re asked to present in front of leadership. These reactions are normal, but not recognizing them means you’ll likely let them dictate your behavior over and over again. Try keeping an emotion log for a week. After intense reactions, jot down what you felt, what triggered it, and how you responded. Your goal is data capture. At this point, you aren’t trying to change anything. You’re seeking clarity.

Listen to Your Body

Your body often signals your emotions before your mind processes them. For example, clenched fists may signal frustration, or a tight feeling in your chest can indicate anxiety. When your heart races during a tense one-on-one with your manager, this is a physical cue. Remind yourself to pause, breathe, and do not respond impulsively. If your shoulders tense every time a particular coworker emails you, then take a moment to analyze why. Are you anticipating conflict? Understanding this pattern can help you approach your reply calmly.

Understand Your Triggers

How do you feel when your coworker interrupts you during brainstorming sessions? What about when a teammate takes credit for your work during a presentation? Does your head hurt when your manager abruptly shifts deadlines or priorities without explanation? Does receiving vague feedback on a high-stakes project haunt you for days? If you recognize the patterns in your behavior, then you can prevent your frustration from making bad decisions for you during critical interactions. Knowing your triggers lets you plan responses instead of reactions.

Get Perspective

Feedback from colleagues can uncover blind spots. You expect to get feedback from your manager, but you probably won’t get it from your teammates unless you ask. For example, if your tech lead thinks you seem dismissive when you disagree with them, that is something you want to know. You need to become aware of how your unintentional reactions affect those around you. Once you are, you can adjust your tone and body language during your conversations. If you don’t have a work bestie you trust to tell you the truth, you can use personality assessments like StrengthsFinder or Enneagram (look in the comments for links to these resources) to discover your natural tendencies.

Reflect on Your Reactions

Look back at that emotion log you kept for a week. The data you collected states what you felt, the trigger, and how you responded. Now, ask yourself why you responded that way in those situations. For example, if you felt anxiety during a meeting, the trigger was a shortened deadline, and your response was raising your voice, ask yourself: “Why did I respond that way?” Maybe the answer is tight deadlines bring out your impatience. Since tight deadlines are going to keep happening, think about how you can handle similar situations more constructively. Over time identifying your patterns will not only help you identify similar emotions in real time, but also help you control them. Keep your emotion log this week, DM me some examples, and next week we’ll talk about some constructive ways to regulate those emotions.

What emotion do you feel most while at work? Please share in the comments.